BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

Third in a Series

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY FEB. 12, 2018) — When the EPA hit Pittsfield with stricter water standards in 2008, the city, to its credit, fought back. There’s some point in the drive for cleaner air, water, and soil that beyond which becomes too much. Such is what happens when the environment becomes politicized. The irony in Pittsfield is that environmental politics largely sealed its fate after the Consent Agreement (CA) with General Electric Company.

TWenty years ago the city and GE sat at the negotiating table with everything up for grabs. GE came equipped with a team of some of the world’s best legal minds. Pittsfield came with Gerry Doyle and legal representation equivalent to a diploma from the Guam College of Law and Taxidermy. Oh yeah, and Tom Hickey, whose main responsibility was keeping the mayor out of trouble in Boston’s bars and Combat Zone. End result? GE left town having wormed out of its moral duty to provide true remediation to Pittsfield. It left town giving the city $10 million, a half-assed “clean-up” of the local aquifer, and the 52 acres of PEDA land still polluted.

It’s odd, then, that the Feds — the same EPA that had a hand in the CA — should insist on imposing higher water standards after they left air, land, and water compromised. Insiders with familiarity with EPA workings have said all along that the agency would be willing to listen to the city’s financial dilemma dealing with an $80 million water-and-sewer upgrade. Councilor Melissa Mazzeo, supported by finance committee members Kevin Morandi and Chris Connell, brought up that point in her grilling of city finance director Matt Kerwood, DPW commissioner David Turocy, and Alan Wells of Kleinfelder Inc., Pittsfield water consultant. A flummoxed Kerwood “um-ed” and “uh, uh-ed” his way through a incomprehensible word salad that fed no one. Turocy said he didn’t know how much the borrowing would affect water and sewer fees for bedraggled taxpayers. Wells said “the end goal is compliance with the permit and administrative order,” but of course he would say that. His company, which has already made north of $6 million wihout any actual upgrades being done, has many millions more at stake.

This sends the issue back to the crucial point of the city-s 2010-11 appeal of the EPA directive. How effective was the city’s legal presentation to the EPA? Kerwood, hopelessly ill-equipped to handle the questions, treaded water. Neither he nor mayor Linda Tyer thought it necessary to have the lawyers who handled the case there for the subcommittee.  That’s either stupidity or arrogance. THE PLANET takes this as the administration’s tacit admission that the city blew it again in the courts but doesn’t want to admit it. To know why, follow the money. There’s $80 million at stake here, with the likely promise of sweeteners for all those who help pry it out of taxpayers. Sad as it is to consider, it appears as if the EPA rejected the city’s case out of hand because the paperwork was improperly presented.

Consequently and conversely, there’s every reason to believe that the EPA would respond favorably to a proper filing in the courts, with a good chance the agency could waive compliance. This would save Pittsfield taxpayes tens of millions of dollars.

As far as water standards, Pittsfield had its chance to clean things up 20 years ago with GE. It failed. Why compund failure this time around?

THE PLANET urges the city council as a whole to reject this plan, hire a damned good lawyer armed with sugar, honey, and sharp teeth, and do the right thing for their constituents.

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“California is a great place to grow up … if you’re an orange” — Fred Allen.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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