ISWM Expansion Gets Planning Board Approval In Bourne
The Bourne Planning Board has issued an approval of plans to expand the town landfill at 201 MacArthur Boulevard, bringing about the culmination of a years-long effort to extend the life of the landfill.
Phil Goddard, manager of facility compliance and technology development at the Integrated Solid Waste Management Facility, went before the board last Thursday, November 10, to present the plans, which he said show the landfill’s maximum buildout capacity. ISWM is expected to reach its capacity in the next few years, and Mr. Goddard said the facility needs to “move forward as quickly as possible” to build out the next phase.
Plans for expansion at ISWM include moving the facility’s administrative offices, its construction and demolition barn, and Dorothy’s Swap Shop to a 12-acre parcel purchased from Cape Cod Aggregates owner Samuel A. Lorusso Jr. The area where those operations are currently located would be freed up for two additional disposal cells of roughly 25 acres, designated as phases 7 and 8. Along with the vertical buildout of phase 9, these additional disposal cells would keep the landfill operational potentially into the mid-2040s.
The plans have been reviewed by the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act Office (MEPA), the Cape Cod Commission and the Bourne Board of Health, Mr. Goddard said. With planning board approval, he said, ISWM is prepared to clear the 12-acre parcel in early 2023.
“The plan before you is an additional 15 to 20 years of landfilling at 201 MacArthur Boulevard and about 5 million cubic yards of airspace, which is extremely valuable,” Mr. Goddard said. “We’re very fortunate the Town of Bourne is going to have capacity for at least 20 years and then, through our agreement with Covanta SEMASS, disposal after that for another 20 years.”
Mr. Goddard explained that ISWM came before the board last week to trigger review of its full plan, which includes 18 acres of Eastern box turtle habitat mitigation land on a parcel located on Route 28 near the Otis Rotary. ISWM was notified by the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife’s Natural Heritage & Endangered Species program that it needed to provide mitigation land for the box turtles, which Mr. Goddard said comes at a rate of 1.5 acres of mitigation per acre taken for the 12-acre parcel it will be claiming for landfill space.
ISWM has so far secured 6.5 acres of an 18-acre parcel that was divided between two owners, Mr. Goddard said, which gives it 4.3 acres of the 12-acre parcel to work with at this time. The facility plans to secure the rest of the required mitigation land, but for now, he said, he wanted to present the board with the full plan, which will then progress forward in incremental steps. Mr. Goddard said the mitigation land plan has been accepted by the MassWildlife program and is now under control of the Bourne Conservation Commission.
“In order for us to do the full buildout of the landfill and move the buildings out here, we need to have the full 12 acres, so we want to give you the big picture,” he said.
Mr. Goddard added that if ISWM is not successful in getting the mitigation land, the plan is to pursue another parcel to meet the requirement.
“That’s why we want the full 12-acre clearing approved through the waiver that we’re asking for tonight,” he said. “We’re about to finalize our conservation management permit concurrently with what we’re doing here tonight. Both roads would meet in January, and we would immediately clear this [12-acre] area.”
The landfill expansion process has been underway for about five years, he said. The first step is to complete the construction of the vertical phase 9 over the existing landfill and then to move southward over the next six to eight years.
“That will buy us the time, if you will, to figure out funding, design, how we’re going to put the buildings out here and all of that,” Mr. Goddard said. The first step, he said, is to work with the 4.3 acres ISWM has room to mitigate for and to start moving necessary materials to the designated area to prepare for the next phase buildout.
“That’s the immediate need,” he said. “We need that as soon as possible so that we’ll have the new phase ready this summer coming up in order to meet when we’re full with phase 6.”
With a contractor ready to go in early 2023 to do site clearing, Mr. Goddard said that from there ISWM would move soils, build out phase 9 and, over time, come back to the planning board and other required town bodies, as well as Town Meeting, to progress through the next phases of buildout as presented.
“We’d come back to you, of course, with all the design plans, the stormwater, the parking and all the code,” Mr. Goddard said. “This will give you the roadmap along the way as the landfill progresses.”
Board member John G. Carroll saying that the plans should pass and that ISWM is “one heck of a complicated but successful operation.”
“While I say that, let me say we cannot forever—and we don’t plan to forever—take more land,” Mr. Carroll said. “Our land is a valuable resource, and the resources that we’re putting in ISWM may also be valuable resources. So in the long run, let’s be careful how far we plan to put stuff here in Bourne or out in Ohio or other places. Let’s try to look at the head of the snake some day soon.”
Mr. Goddard confirmed that there are no plans for further expansion of ISWM beyond what is currently before the board.
“Bourne is very fortunate to have what we have there,” board member Sandra Goldstein said. “There is not going to be one anywhere else and when we buy things, the more sustainable everything can be the longer that what we have will last. Even though we recycle most everything, people still throw a lot of stuff out.”
The board approved the plans with six affirmative votes and one abstention.