CHELSEA, Mass. — Several weeks ago, Elizabeth Alvarado first noticed what looked like trash piling up on a median along Route One.
“At first I didn’t pay too much attention,” she said.
But the Chelsea resident is paying lots of attention now, after it was revealed the growing pile of debris contains asbestos — a physical toxin that, when inhaled, can trigger a vicious form of cancer known as mesothelioma.
Alvarado and her daughter live less than a mile from the dumping ground, which is made up of debris from a bridge project on the Lynn-Saugus line.
“I personally have asthma,” said Katherinne Zabaleta-Alvarado. “So I’m pretty sure that can cause me problems. I have a pretty low immune system and so does my Mom. I don’t know why they would put that there.”
What Chelsea city officials want to know is why the Department of Transportation, with the blessing of the Department of Environmental Protection, put the debris there without telling any local leaders.
Chelsea City Council President Roy Avellaneda said he just found out about the debris two days ago.
“I began to ask questions to my local contacts here,” said Avellaneda. “All of them responded the same way: No, they were not aware. No one from MassDOT or DEP had notified them. MassDOT applied for a permit to DEP to do this. It is within their bounds and their right of way so technically they did not do anything illegal. The only part about this that is bothersome was that no notification was given to the local municipality.”
Avellaneda said the two state agencies have since apologized for that lack of notification — and a clean up plan is in the works. But permits to move the contaminated material to a certified facility will take at least two weeks to obtain. In the meantime, MassDOT has installed tarps over the piles.
“DEP and MassDot should have opened lines of communication,” Avellaneda said. “We are in constant contact with them — local officials, the city manager — meet with them on a monthly basis to talk about projects that are going on in our city.”
One of those projects is an ongoing air quality monitoring program — put into place in part because of Chelsea’s geographic proximity to Logan Airport.
While the lack of notification may have been nothing more than an oversight, some charge it is a sign of environmental discrimination — given the debris is sited close to several public housing facilities.
“If you told someone that this was happening it would be like, no way, you’re making that up,” said Maria Belen Power, associate executive director of the environmental activist group GreenRoots, Inc. “This is incredible. That after Covid, after so many inequities have been uncovered about environmental justice and public health.”
GreenRoots is calling on the state to not only clean up the site, but to check the soil for contamination — and to fan out to local apartment buildings to perform indoor air quality monitoring.
“They would never do this in a white community that’s wealthy,” Power said. “Would they do this in Governor Baker’s backyard... his neighborhood? No way.”
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