Bedford Minuteman
October 27, 2005

Safety issues lead Crosspoint project concerns

By Barbara Forster/ Correspondent

Despite a refusal from the state environmental agency to require a
separate environmental study on the Crosspoint project at Hanscom Field, the
four surrounding communities plan to keep up the fight. The battleground is
various public safety issues.

One issue is drinking water. At the Hanscom Area Towns Selectmen
meeting on Thursday, Oct. 20, Selectman Sheldon Moll of Bedford noted that
Bedford's conservation and health departments are concerned because Hanscom
Field's fuel site is on top of the town's Zone 2 aquifer. Currently, he
added, "the aquifer that serves Hartwell Road well field is constantly being
pumped to clean it up."

And, continued Moll, putting a fuel storage site over the aquifer does
not trigger MEPA review. "What does?" he asked. "A pipeline through an
aquifer?"

Fire hazards and access to the site are also important. According to
Anne Shapiro, selectman from Concord, the ability of area fire departments
to clean up fuel spills must be considered due to access issues.

"Virginia Road has such difficult sites," she said. "It's winding,
there are no shoulders, and there is a 90-degree turn at the end."

In addition, wetlands line the roadsides.

Lincoln Selectman Sara Mattes, the chairman of HATS, reported that the
Air Force base fire chief was "unaware" of Crosspoint's plans to store fuel
near runway crash zones.

"If you look at other bases, this is definitely not recommended as good
practice," said Mattes. "It's also near some residential areas. This doesn't
make a lot of sense from a public safety point of view."

The four towns are discussing whether to take legal action.

Crosspoint wants to build a 60,000-square-foot hangar [plus 13,000 sq.
ft. of passenger amenities and 18,000 sq. ft. of flight support -- ed.] on
the site of the former MIT facility also known as Hangar 24. Based in
Woburn, Crosspoint is an affiliate company of Eastern Development, LLC.

--About those noise monitors

That aircraft noise affects residents in the four communities around
Hanscom is a given. But where to measure those effects is a long-standing
issue.

A presentation by Michael Bahtiarian, who heads an ad hoc committee on
noise, was part of an ongoing effort to work with Massport on a new system
to track aircraft and aircraft noise. Most of the work involves Logan, but
six noise monitors around Hanscom are included in the system.

Over the years, area residents and Massport staff have expressed
concern about the effectiveness of the monitors due to location. For
example, the Concord monitor is next to the town's Wastewater Treatment
Plant and a "very audible" spillway.

"In some cases, community noise is at level with air traffic," said
Bahtiarian. "The conclusion is that the monitors are measuring community
noise."

Nevertheless, moving the monitors is down the road. Bahtiarian and his
group plan to evaluate the capabilities of the new system to determine what
types of information it can deliver. "The new system can pick up more
aircraft than we now see," added Sara Arnold of Massport.

Several years ago, another community-based noise group reached a
similar conclusions and recommended that at least two monitors be moved.
Massport agreed that the Concord monitor should move.

"The monitors were put in at the request of the communities," said
Arnold. "All the sites were selected with input from all the communities; it
wasn't easy finding sites that were acceptable."

Two of the six monitors are on Massport property. The remaining four
are in each of the Hanscom communities with one on Minute Man National
Historical Park property. The lease with the park has expired, but the
20-year agreements with the towns for the three remaining sites are still in
effect.

Rannoch Corporation of Alexandria, Va., is putting in the new system.

--Save the parks

HATS intends to comment on a proposal by Congressman Richard Pombo of
California to sell off unproductive sites within the National Park System.

"To even have this discussion out there is appalling," said Mattes.

Under the proposed guidelines, the Frederick Law Olmsted National
Historic Site in Brookline is one of the parks that could be sold. The park
honors the founder of American landscape architecture, who helped design the
grounds of the U.S. Capitol, the White House, the Emerald Necklace in
Boston, and other National Park Service sites.

In recent weeks, Pombo's staff has described the draft bill as "absurd
and laughable." The real purpose was to show other legislators why it was
important to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.
Pombo chairs the House Resources Committee which was directed to come up
with $2.4 billion in savings. The choice was to drill or to sell parks.

Jeanne Krieger, selectman from Lexington, and Shapiro plan to take the
issue to their respective boards. "I will endorse this (the letter) as a
HATS selectman," added Moll, "but Bedford doesn't do that sort of thing."

HATS also expects to comment on revised regulations for the parks
system. "The regulation changes no longer make preservation the core
mission," said Mattes. "Instead, use for public enjoyment would supersede
preservation."

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