Guest MINDSETTER™ Germain: A Call to End the Concord Street Transfer Station Project

Sunday, June 17, 2018

Guest MINDSETTER™ Patricia Germain

Pawtucket Mayor Don Grebien

The residents of Fairlawn, the Providence City Council and the North Providence Town Council, along with businesses, community organizations, and many local politicians stand united against a plan that would threaten the vitality of a neighborhood and halt economic growth and development for residents and businesses both city-wide and in neighboring communities. Now, more than ever, we need our elected representatives on the Pawtucket City Council to stand with us in support of a resolution designed to eliminate the Concord Street Transfer Station project as an option for Pawtucket’s future.

In an effort to limit spending, the City of Pawtucket privatized its waste management and sanitation functions in 2012. At that time, it entered into a five -year contract with a private company, Link Environmental, LLC (Link)—formerly Waste Haulers-- to manage waste collection processes and operate the Grotto Avenue Transfer Station on city-owned land. In 2017, the Grebien administration renewed the contract with Link. One of its immediate deliverables was a “Closure Plan” to end operations at the Grotto Avenue site and construct a new, 34,000 square- foot facility, with a construction and demolition processing component, on Concord Street. Built on privately owned land, which is illegal per City ordinance, and leased to Link for twenty years, this facility would operate 20 hours per day, 6 days per week. It would process 2,000 tons of waste per day, roughly quadrupling the volume of the current transfer station on Grotto Avenue. It also would introduce, conservatively, nearly 400 additional daily vehicle trips to an already congested area that has had well over 400 traffic accidents during the past three year period.

From its high perch at City Hall, the administration sees the Concord Street project as an opportunity to increase revenue; however, those who live or work near the current, smaller transfer station know firsthand that that revenue will come with a hefty price tag. As a regional shipping center for waste and construction and demolition debris, the Concord Street Transfer Station will decimate quality of life on the west side of the city; erode property values; and repel potential investors, property buyers, and businesses. By increasing traffic, litter, and rodent/vermin activity, this project will threaten public safety and health on a scale four times larger than that of the Grotto Avenue facility. Understandably so, neighbors are gravely concerned and anxious about the impact that this project will have on their personal and financial well-being Indeed, it is no wonder that in the recent special primary election, the candidate who was unequivocally opposed to the Concord Street Transfer Station proposal, political newcomer and relative unknown, Emmanuel Echevarria, won Fairlawn’s district with approximately 60% of the vote. If this does not provide proof that neighbors are standing together against this ill-conceived, short-sighted idea and demanding environmentally responsible, progressive solutions to our sanitation problems, then I don’t know what will.

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However, the negative impacts of this project are not confined to a specific section of the city. Common sense says that this project will negatively impact economic development city-wide. Consider this: it will be the first thing observable from the highway as one enters Pawtucket from points south, solidifying the stigma of Pawtucket as “the bucket”—in this case, the GARBAGE BUCKET—of the state and, now, the entire region. It does irreparable damage to the emerging branding of our city as a former mill center that embraces its history but is committed to positioning itself to evolve and thrive in the 21stcentury by undoing (and not repeating) the environmental ills of its past. If the administration’s plans come to fruition, we will have a replica of Fenway at one gateway to the city and a Temple to Waste at the other. If Pawtucket is truly destined to be, as Mayor Grebien says, "Rhode Island’s premiere arts and cultural destination, an ideal community to live, work, play, start a business and raise a family,” then we cannot afford to embrace this plan for easy money that compounds and complicates, rather than solves, our city’s problems and injustices.

A quick review of the latest DEM report on Grotto’s transfer station shows that this administration has not provided active contract management, nor has our Council been forceful enough in holding Link accountable to stipulations that are clearly defined in the contract. The interests of taxpayers have not been served. The City Charter demands that the City Council take on the role of providing checks and balances to the executive branch. Residents deserve—and will demand-- a council that not only holds government accountable for its shortcomings and failures, but that also leads in the development of solutions to the problems that we, as a united city, face.

On June 20, Councilor Timothy Rudd, District 6, will introduce a resolution that both opposes and ceases conversation on the Concord Street project. The eight members of the Council must ask themselves if their constituents would want the equivalent of the Concord Street project in their own district. Would they want it on the Industrial Highway? On Armistice Boulevard? On Newport Avenue? On Narragansett Park Drive? If their answer is NO, then they must vote YES on the resolution. I urge you, as my fellow city resident, to contact your council representative and ask him/her to preserve our neighborhoods and the reputation of our great city by approving this resolution against the transfer station. We not only can do better, but we must do better.

Patricia St. Germain is a Pawtucket resident and organizer of the Fairlawn Against Crime Team, known as FACT, which has led local efforts and facilitated dialogue to stop the development of a second transfer station in Fairlawn.

Guest MINDSETTER™ Germain: A Call to End the Concord Street Transfer Station Project

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