A rare soft Massport landing at Hanscom
Expansion foes told hearing plan will be postponed

By Kerry Drohan, Globe Staff, 8/5/2001

BEDFORD - A funny thing happened to Selectman Sheldon Moll on the way to the
July 26 meeting of the Hanscom Area Towns Committee.

Moll carried an emphatic letter he had drafted to Massport, urging the
agency to postpone public meetings on its plan to clear vegetation at
Hanscom Field. The letter needed only the signatures of his counterparts
from Lexington, Concord, and Lincoln.

As Moll emerged from his car, he met a Massport spokesman, Richard Walsh,
who handed him a letter announcing that the agency had postponed the
meetings.

''I was surprised,'' Moll said. ''I had not expected them to respond so
favorably, although we all felt they should back off. They are clearly going
out of their way to accommodate most of our objections to the process.''

So get out the calendars. The change by Massport, which a week earlier had
insisted that it would stick to its published schedule of meetings, sets up
the busiest period of airport activity since Shuttle America began
commercial service in September 1999.

The busy season began Thursday, with arguments scheduled in the federal
court case in which activists appealed an FAA decision allowing Shuttle
America to fly to New York's LaGuardia Airport. Between now and the end of
September, there will be a slew of public meetings on the vegetation issue,
more meetings on Massport's ''scoping'' for a new environmental impact
statement, and discussions with Bedford about clearing trees in the Hartwell
Town Forest.

Massport will present a draft of the airportwide vegetation management plan
at the Aug. 21 meeting of the Hanscom Field Advisory Commission, to be
followed by public meetings Aug. 28 and Sept. 13, according to Walsh. After
those meetings, Massport will submit notices of intent to clear vegetation
to the four towns' conservation commissions. The commissions will then have
21 days to schedule public meetings.

Walsh said Massport had changed its schedule, to be consistent with the
process outlined in the 1999 Hanscom environmental statement.

''A lot of attention has been paid to Massport's relations with the towns
regarding Hanscom, and that tends to showcase problems,'' Walsh said. ''What
people tend to overlook is that positive things continue to happen.''

Lincoln selectwoman Sara Mattes, a Hanscom Field Advisory Commission
representative, thanked Massport for revising the schedule.

''I appreciate their willingness to be more collaborative and respect due
process,'' Mattes said. ''Perhaps this hearkens a new era with communities
in their relationships with Massport.''

''On the other hand,'' she said, ''I do get concerned when I see repetitions
of behavior that in its intitial action doesn't reflect the time needs of
small towns and all-volunteer committees.''

Moll, too, accentuated the positives.

''I am wishful that this would signal a new era of cooperation,'' said Moll,
who is chairman of the Hanscom Field Advisory Commission. ''No one can
remember when Massport has been so cooperative. My one comment is, in the
future please don't schedule a large vegetation management plan at the same
time as a five-year update [on the Environmental Status and Planning
Report]. To combine all this within a two-month span may confuse the
public.''

Others are more skeptical.

''Massport did this because they had no choice,'' said Marty Pepper
Aisenberg, projects director for the activist group Save Our Heritage.
''Their claim that they had the right to file a vegetation management plan
without a full public review process was simply untenable. Of course, we're
glad they recognized their legal obligations in this instance.''

Lexington Selectman Peter Enrich said Massport was obligated to conform to
the process it had helped create.

''Massport was party to the development of these documents, and they are not
unsophisticated people,'' Enrich said. ''The only reasonable presumption is
that Massport knew they were short-circuiting these steps and had chosen to
do that until they were called up short. This does not reinforce a sense of
trust.''

Enrich noted ''a lot of positives in the big picture.''

''Things are a lot better than they could have been,'' he said. ''We have
gone from the threat of serious expansion to major carriers back to one
crippled airline that is gradually drifting into bankruptcy. We also have
built much stronger alliances among a broad circle of parties that are
opposed to the inappropriate expansion of Hanscom - citizen's groups, the
national park, other towns - these coalitions are much stronger now than
they were two years ago.

''Now we are going into the ESPR process and are grappling with trees, and
those will be challenges for these coalitions. There is a lot of wrangling
ahead.''

Moll agreed that the parties have a long way to go, but he said he is
optimistic.

''I would hope that this action on the meetings is a preview of more
cooperation between Massport and the towns,'' he said. ''The key word is
hope.''

But just in case, he is not discarding the unsent letter. As he announced at
the Hanscom Area Towns meeting, ''I think we'll keep it on file.''

*Hanscom Field meeting schedule*

Schedule of key public meetings on Hanscom Field issues (times and locations
to be announced, if not included):

Aug. 21: Hanscom Field Advisory Commission (HFAC) meeting. Massport presents
draft of its airport-wide Vegetation Management Plan (VMP). Bedford Town
Hall, 7:30 p.m.

Aug. 27: Hanscom Area Towns Committee (HATS) meeting. Comment from
environmental subcommittee on VMP. Concord Town Building.

Aug. 28: Massport public meeting on VMP, Lexington Sheraton, 7:30 p.m.

Sept. 11: Massport public meeting on Environmental Status and Planning
Report (ESPR) ''scope.''

Sept. 13: Massport public meeting on VMP, Lexington Sheraton, 7:30 p.m.

Sept. 18: HFAC meeting on VMP, Bedford Town Hall, 7:30 p.m.

Sept. 20: Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act public hearing on ESPR
''scope,'' Bedford Town Hall, 6:30 p.m.


This story ran on page W13 of the Boston Globe on 8/5/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.
==========
**NOTICE:  In accordance with 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.**
==========