Iron Horse Park Superfund Site

The Iron Horse Park Superfund site is the old Boston and Maine Railroad shop yard in North Billerica, a complex of about 553 acres of rail yards, factories, storage yards, landfills, lagoons and wetlands east of High Street and west of Pond Street, reaching to the Tewksbury line. The Environmental Protection Agency placed it on the National Priorities List of the Superfund program in September 1984, after seventy years of industrial use had left its soil, sediment, groundwater and surface water contaminated with heavy metals, asbestos, PCBs, petroleum and organic chemicals. About 61,000 people lived within three miles. The cleanup, divided into four parts, has gone on for four decades while railroad and industrial businesses kept working on the site, and since 2013 its landfills have carried some of the largest solar arrays in the state.

The railroad bought the land, low wet ground crossed by the line of the Building of the Middlesex Canal, in 1911 and filled and graded it for its repair shops, which opened in 1914 (see Opening of the Boston and Maine Shops). In the late 1930s the railroad ran an oil and sludge recycling area on part of the property. As repair work declined it sold or leased parts of the yard: in 1944 Johns-Manville bought 70 acres and made asbestos-containing structural insulating board there, burying asbestos sludge and mill waste in landfills on the site. The firms of the yard ran their industrial wastewater, sanitary wastewater and stormwater into lagoons, which were dredged from time to time and the dredgings piled nearby. By 1968 the area was known as Iron Horse Park, an industrial park in which the General Latex and Chemical Corporation built an addition to its pilot plant that year. On its southeast edge, beside the railroad at 209 Pond Street, grew the Shaffer Landfill, the old Pond Street dump, to which the town sent its rubbish. In 1970 the town meeting was asked to buy the 110-acre "Shaffer Property" "adjacent to Boston and Maine Railroad tracks, Pond Street and the Middlesex Canal" for $165,900 as a town-owned landfill, and dismissed the article by 101 votes to 53. A sewer contract finished in 1979 gave "the Boston and Maine's Iron Horse Park" a way to discharge sewage into the town system, though the railroad had not yet tied in.

The town asked for federal help before the listing. A special town meeting on November 29, 1983 was asked, by its first article, "to adopt a resolution requesting our congressional delegation to obtain superfund money for hazardous waste cleanup for the Town of Billerica." In 1984 the EPA made a short-term cleanup and capped a 13.3-acre asbestos landfill, "properly capped by the Federal Government," the Board of Health wrote, and in September 1984 the site was placed on the National Priorities List. The Shaffer Landfill was closed for a week in June 1984 and reopened only after negotiations between its owners and the state; it stopped taking waste on April 1, 1986, and the town had to find another way of disposing of its solid waste, turning to a curbside collection contract. At a special town meeting in the spring of 1985 the moderator announced that the Superfund Action Committee would hold a public meeting on June 12 at the Lewis Memorial Building, 250 Boston Road, "to discuss the Remedial Investigation Feasibility Study for the Iron Horse Park Superfund site." The Board of Health worked with that committee through the late 1980s "to oversee the Superfund sites Cleanup in Billerica," and in 1987 the Historical Commission noted the rise of citizens' groups concerned with "health hazards additional to those associated with our two infamous 'Superfund' sites."

The EPA decided the cleanup in four parts. The first, the 15 acres of Boston and Maine wastewater lagoons, was decided in 1988. In February 1990 the park put its own pumping station on line to send the pretreated wastewater of its industries, BNZ, McQuesten, Wood Fabricators, Guilford Industries and Penn Culvert, to the town sewers; discharges to the lagoons ended in 1992, and their soil and sediment were dug out and treated off the site. The second part, the 60-acre Shaffer Landfill, was decided in 1991, and at the spring town meeting that May Helen R. Knight reported for the Superfund Committee that the EPA was "going to put a complete cover on the Schaeffer Landfill and take care of the leachate off-site." The EPA, the state and the responsible parties agreed on the work in 2000, and the cap was finished in 2003, with gas collection, leachate collection and groundwater monitoring continuing. The third part, the remaining source areas, was decided on September 30, 2004: about 34 acres of waste in six areas were to be capped and fenced and a seventh cap maintained, at an estimated $23.5 million. Under a consent decree announced on January 16, 2008, the Boston and Maine Corporation, BNZ Materials and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority agreed to do that work, with payments from Johns Manville. The fourth part, the surface water, sediment and groundwater of the whole site, was decided in 2011. Water enters the site from the south and drains northeast through the Iron Horse Park Drainage to B&M Pond and an unnamed brook toward Richardson Pond, with Round Pond in Tewksbury sampled for comparison; the remedy was to dig out about 7,400 cubic yards of sediment from B&M Pond, control the stormwater that had recontaminated it, let the brook recover naturally, and monitor the groundwater inside a compliance boundary, at an estimated $5.4 million.

The listing hung over the use of the land. In 2001 the town meeting defeated a rezoning of Penn Culvert Company land in Iron Horse Park from industrial to commercial, after members raised concerns about traffic and about "the superfund clean-up in the area"; the vote, 68 to 56, fell short of the two-thirds a zoning change needs. The capped landfills found a new use a decade later. In 2013 the town meeting authorized a payment in lieu of taxes agreement for a solar plant of about 5.8 megawatts on the Shaffer Landfill, and Urban Green Technologies built an array of about 20,000 panels on 25 acres of the cap in 2013 and 2014, mounted on ballasted racks so as not to break it, with a dedication in August 2014. The company agreed to pay nearly $3 million in taxes over 25 years and $400,000 in back taxes on the site, and the town was to receive a ten per cent discount on its own power from the array, a saving the Town Manager, John C. Curran, put at over $6 million in 25 years. The EPA gave the site its regional Excellence in Site Reuse award in 2014. Further agreements followed in 2015 for an array of about 4.7 megawatts at the old General Latex building and in 2016 for one of about 5 megawatts on the Pan Am Systems property at 67 High Street; by 2017 the EPA counted about 16 megawatts of solar capacity on the site, part of it on a former asbestos landfill. In 2016 nine businesses on the site, among them Pan Am Railways, employed more than 350 people. Monitoring of the caps and groundwater continues, with reviews of the cleanup at least every five years.

People

• Helen R. Knight: Reported to the May 1991 town meeting for the Superfund Committee that the EPA would cap the Schaeffer (Shaffer) Landfill and treat its leachate off site.
• John C. Curran: Town Manager who reported the EPA award for the Shaffer Landfill solar project and its savings to the town (2015).

References

1. EPA, 'Reuse and the Benefit to Community: Iron Horse Park Superfund Site' (2017): history, 1944 Johns-Manville, 1984 asbestos cap and NPL listing, four operable units, solar projects, jobs and taxes.
2. U.S. Dept. of Justice, Jan. 16, 2008: consent decree with Boston and Maine Corp., BNZ Materials and the MBTA for $23.53 million of source-area cleanup; NPL listing September 1984; 61,000 people within 3 miles.
3. EPA news release, Oct. 8, 2004: OU3 Record of Decision of Sept. 30, 2004, capping about 34 acres in six areas, estimated $23.5 million.
4. EPA news release, Aug. 15, 2011: sediment and groundwater plan, 7,400 cubic yards from B&M Pond, natural recovery of Unnamed Brook, estimated $5.4 million.
5. EPA Region 1 site document for the Iron Horse Park Superfund site, Billerica.
6. 1968 report, Industrial Commission: General Latex Corp. started an addition to its pilot plant in Iron Horse Park.
7. 1970 report (in the 1969 volume), town meeting: Art. 26 to buy the 110-acre Shaffer Property for $165,900 as a town landfill dismissed, 101 to 53.
8. 1979 report, Sewer: Contract No. 22 completed to let the Boston and Maine's Iron Horse Park discharge sewage into the town system.
9. 1983 report: warrant for the special town meeting of Nov. 29, 1983, Art. 1, resolution asking the congressional delegation for superfund money.
10. 1984 report, Selectmen: Shaffer Landfill on Pond Street closed for a week in June 1984; to close in April 1986.
11. 1985 report, town meeting: Superfund Action Committee public meeting June 12 at the Lewis Memorial Building on the Iron Horse Park remedial investigation.
12. 1985 report, Health Department: Iron Horse Park being tested by the EPA; Johns Manville asbestos dump capped; Pond St. Landfill to close April 1, 1986.
13. 1990 report, Wastewater: Iron Horse Park pumping station on line in February 1990 for pretreated discharge of BNZ, McQuesten, Wood Fabricators, Guilford Industries and Penn Culvert.
14. 1991 report, spring town meeting May 16, 1991: Helen Knight reports for the Superfund Committee on the EPA cover for the Schaeffer Landfill.
15. 2001 report, town meeting: Art. 62, rezoning of Penn Culvert land in Iron Horse Park lost 68 to 56 after concerns about the superfund clean-up.
16. 2014 report, special fall town meeting of Oct. 8, 2013: Art. 1, PILOT agreement for a 5.8 MW solar facility on the Shaffer Landfill, 209 Pond Street.
17. 2015 report, Town Manager John C. Curran: EPA award for renewable energy at the Shaffer Landfill; 6 MW UGT array; town saves over $6 million in 25 years.
18. 2015 report, warrant: PILOT agreement for a 4.7 MW solar facility at the General Latex Building, 200 Rear High Street (Iron Horse Park).
19. 2016 report, warrant Art. 2: PILOT agreement for a 5.0 MW solar facility on the Pan Am Systems property, 67 High Street (Iron Horse Park).