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Newport Materials, LLC, has been fined $20,000 by the state for violating several requirements outlined in a consent order.
The latest development is another nick in the veneer of a company bruised by widespread resistance to an agreement made with town officials last year. Westford residents were angered in October when they learned the Board of Selectmen engineered an agreement to permit the construction and operation of an asphalt plant on about 3 acres at 540 Groton Road. The residents railed against the settlement but officials ultimately issued the Major Commercial Project permit required for the plant. It is now under construction.
The DEP issued an “Administrative Consent Order with Penalty and Notice of Noncompliance,” on July 28, but the document was not released until Aug. 14.
The Background
Meanwhile, some of the land – once the dumping ground for Modern Continental, the company which widened Route 3 — is host to a solar panel farm and piles and piles of imported soil. In addition, Newport runs a gravel crushing operation on the parcel.
Newport and 540 Groton Road, LLC , are owned by Richard DeFelice of Nashua, New Hampshire. The companies occupy about 115 acres of industrially zoned land at 540 Groton Road, where, for several months, DeFelice has been importing soil from the Cambridge construction sites of M.I.T. and Harvard University under the state’s “Reclamation Soil Project.” Both colleges are building in Kendall Square.
In November, DeFelice entered into a contract with the state Department of Environmental Protection to participate in the project, designed to fill in quarries, sand and gravel pits. DeFelice’s land abuts the historic Fletcher Granite Quarry founded in 1881.
Four Monitoring Wells
As part of the state’s Administrative Consent Order, dated Nov. 1, 2016, DeFelice agreed to build four groundwater wells, labeled MW-1, MW-2, MW-3, and MW-4 to monitor the quality of the imported soil. The installed wells would “establish background levels in groundwater at the project site” and would “complete annual monitoring of the groundwater,” according to an October report prepared for DeFelice by Millennium Environmental of Marlborough.
Two of the wells were built by Capitol Engineering of Newton. It’s not clear what firm built the first two wells.
The report charges that the installation of the wells was not appropriate for the site conditions. It says they were “not scientifically defensible.” They were also not “reflective of up-to-date methods and technologies generally accepted by the professional and trade communities conducting response actions in accordance with the” Massachusetts Contingency Plan. The plan falls under the Code of Massachusetts Regulations, which governs the administration and enforcement of penalties for non-compliance with an environmental regulation or order. The consent order also charges that the wells were not “suitable” to collect data that assesses potential changes to environmental conditions.
Their purpose was explained by DEP Spokesman Joseph Ferson.
“The wells were for sampling the groundwater before the project, a baseline, and then sampling during the project to determine if there had been any change from baseline,” he stated.
A Licensed Site Professional was Required
In addition, Newport failed to have a licensed site professional perform the collection of the water samples — a clear violation of the consent order. The company also failed to submit the construction status report on time. The report is required to include boring logs or analytical test results.
In February, Newport submitted an amended January report that contained testing data for all four monitoring wells. From the data, DEP officials learned that two of the wells contained elevated concentrations of Bromodichloromethane, Chloroform and Dibromochloromethane. The three compounds are created when water is disinfected using a chlorine-based agent.
“The samples did contain disinfection byproducts used in drinking water treatment and appeared to be consistent with levels found in Westford’s public water supply detected in groundwater,” according to the consent order, but there was no further explanation.
It’s unclear what the results mean or whether they indicate a health hazard. When pressed for an explanation Ferson stated, “The respondent did not meet the requirements for groundwater monitoring. The site groundwater sampling results that were submitted were not consistent with groundwater. The samples did contain disinfection byproducts used in drinking water treatment and appeared to be consistent with levels found in Westford’s public water supply.”
DeFelice is required to pay the $20,000 fine within 30 days of the signed consent order. In addition, he’ll be required to pay an additional $7,000 within a 30-day period if he violates any consent provisions within one year.
Finally, DeFelice had 30 days to submit a plan prepared by a licensed site professional to “install, develop, gauge, and sample four new groundwater monitoring wells at the site.”
