East Boston - Chelsea
Creek Action Group
Attending: Vinny Ieni, Nancei Radicchi,
Maddy McComiskey, Lucy Del Muto, Christopher Blackler, Gail Miller, Susan Voloshin,
Roberta Marchi, Arthur Horn, Roberta Horn, Louis Silvestro (Channel Fish), Aaron Toffler
and Tim Dube (Urban Ecology Institute) Priya Patel (Parks & Recreation), Karl Pastore
and Kwabena Kyei-Aboagye Jr. (EOEA), Maria Van Dusen, Deborah Brown (EPA) Stacey Chacker
(NOAH), Susan Loucks (CCAG). Condor Street Urban Wild: Priya reported that the Parks Department had made progress on the Urban Wild permitting and licensing procedures. As a result, clean-up is scheduled to begin in April (as long as they can get a contractor by then)! They are expected to have the park completed by winter of this year. Hopefully, planting for salt marsh will be in Memorial Day. If not, they will be planted next year. Stacey mentioned that we should avoid mentioning the name of the company who provided funds for the SEP, as the money that are providing is a fine for their non-compliance with environmental regulations and they should not be receiving publicity for this project. Updates Artist Selection Process for Urban Wild : Maddy provided update on artist selection process for public art. They interviewed one artist, and will interview three more on February 20. Special meetings: Stacey advised the group that many special meetings were coming up this spring. The group decided not to cancel any regularly scheduled meetings. Hess Site: Scappichio meeting: Lucy told about a CCAG meeting with Councilor Scappichio, to inform him about the Hess site process and to get his support. She reported that he spoke of housing and potential de-designation of site, but was receptive to CCAG ideas that these may not be desirable uses for that land. NOAH and TPL are working to see what steps would be necessary to get site control (basically an option to buy). One step is to find money to pay people to do feasibility analysis (including preliminary budgets, plans, and potentially some drawings). Stacey, Matt, and Joe Bamberg (from NOAH’s real estate department) met with Nancy Kafka from TPL. Joe suggested that it would be easier to raise money if we focused on a few of the potential alternatives (such as artist’s space or a fishery) instead of all of them. Then we might be able to find a real estate developer who was interested in being a partner. NOAH is researching potential sources of money and meeting with funders, including LISC. Another idea is to have John DeVillers (Brownfield Development Council) take a site tour. Visioning Process: Roberta and Nancei reported that the Steering committee for Visioning process met on January 30th. At that meeting, they decided to use the slides and resources of the Waterfront Center, and they discussed the scope of work. The next subcommittee meeting (which also includes people from Chelsea and Revere) will be on February 21. Slade’s Mill: The new owner of the Slade’s Mill building on the border of Revere and Chelsea has plans to renovate the building. The first floor will be for a museum, and there will be lodging above (whether this was apartments or a bed and breakfast was unclear). There will be a site tour on February 20, at 1:00 PM. Toxics Action Conference: The annual Toxics Action Conference will be held March 16 this year. This conference is designed to give communities information on how to deal with toxins and industries. We have two free tickets for participants, call Stacey if you are interested. Business Report Card Project: Susan L. gave a summary of this project, which was designed as a tool to be able to congratulate businesses who are doing well, and encourage other businesses to improve their practices. A subcommittee met late last year to talk about the structure of this project, including who would do the grading (residents on Falcon & Condor st, as well as residents on the CCAG mailing list) and how the report card would look. Within the last two weeks, Susan V, Tim (UEI) and Susan L. did doorknocking on the two streets and completed the mailing. We discussed what kind of press event we would like to see at the end of this process. People were interested in inviting newspapers, business owners who were part of the survey, and any residents to a press conference on the creek. Visuals should include a large report card and awards to a few businesses. So far there have been less than 20 responses mailed back. The group thought of other ways to increase resident involvement in this project, including leading a walk along Condor St. on a Saturday where residents can grade-as-they-go. Several people mentioned the importance of building bridges to businesses, focusing on the positive results, and not having this exercise alienate them (especially with the upcoming visioning process). Louis suggested publicizing the good results, and taking the bad results to businesses individually and talking with them about how they can improve. This is the first report card, and so we don’t currently have a baseline. If businesses refuse to hear our results, we can put increasing pressure on them in the future. We can also vote on "most improved" as CCAG, and give some kind of award for that. We agreed to send out a letter to business owners, along with a cover letter explaining the exercise, as well as to discuss the results at a sub-committee meeting or EB-CCAG meeting. DPW Yard: Stacey asked if there are any improvements in the DPW yard since our last meeting. Members replied that while the leaves had been taken away to some degree, there are still piles of dirt and that it looked worse. The salt pile is still mostly uncovered, even on the side that has no truck access, and other problems still remain. Louis mentioned open fires on the site. Stacey read the follow-up letter to members, who approved it. Deb Brown (EPA) said she had referred the problem to the person in charge of storm water runoff at the EPA, and suggested we cc the letter to Bob Varney (Region 1 Administrator) and Sam Silverman (Head of the Environmental Stewardship department) New Hire at the EPA to Focus on Chelsea Creek Deb Brown announced that the EPA hired Bob Golden as a part-time person working on Chelsea Creek Pollution Prevention issues. He worked as an Environmental Health and Safety officer for Polaroid, and has a background in mechanical engineering. His job at the EPA will be to connect with businesses along Chelsea Creek, and help them find and implement alternative technologies that can cut down on emissions. Stacey asked how he would be accountable to CCAG, and what measurements of his success might be. One thing he will need to start with is developing pollution measurement tools to match the very different sizes of industry that are there. He will also attend the next CCAG meeting where we can talk to him in person. Source: Stacey.Chacker@noahcdc.org |
