State Rep. Tram Nguyen of Andover, chair of the House Committee on Climate Action and Sustainability, speaks at an event open to press at Taft Farms. The committee visited several sites in South Berkshire on Monday.
Brittany Ebeling of the BEAT speaks on the work to remove the peaker plant in Lee.
Tafts Farms owner Paul Tawczynski talks about the challenges the farm has faced because of climate change.
Great Barrington Select Board member Eric Gabriel holds up a jar of cloudy water from the Housatonic Water Works. There are ongoing discussions of the town possibly taking over the private company.
State Rep. Leigh Davis of Great Barrington hosted the committee as it traveled through her district.
GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — The House Committee on Climate Action and Sustainability visited South County on Monday to hear about environmental efforts from organizations and businesses.
Hosted by state Rep. Leigh Davis, of the 3rd Berkshire District, they began at April Hill Farm in South Egremont, traveled to Lake Mansfield Recreation Area and Taft Farms, and concluded at the former peaking power plant on Woodland Road and Woods Pond in Lee.
"This is the first of many talks that we're looking to do across state, because the role of the committee here is really to be that liaison, to make sure that not only are the different committees in the House informed about climate action and what's going on across the state, but to really meet people where they're at as well," explained Tram Nguyen, state representative for the 18th Essex District and chair of committee.
"Our goal really is to make sure that climate is in the forefront of all policy work that we do, because we all know that climate action, climate change, sustainability, are all interconnected with housing, transportation, economic development, just every single committee that we touch upon in the Legislature."
She emphasized the importance of collaboration between legislators and the communities they serve, with dialogue about challenges and opportunities to leverage state resources.
"Especially during this time where unfortunately, the federal government has really abandoned a lot of the climate action work that has been so critical in all that we do," Nguyen added.
Owner and CEO of Tafts Farms Paul Tawczynski pointed to a seasonal display of pumpkins and gourds in front of the farm store, explaining "almost none" of them were homegrown. It was around 80 degrees on Monday, just days before October's start, and for farms, it means pests that used to subside in the winter stay around longer.
"This isn't normal, but it's the new normal, and it is a problem that we have to deal with on a literal daily basis on the farm," Tawczynski said.
About 80 percent of Taft Farms' crops are decorative, and they weren't able to plant pumpkin and more because of Phytophthora, a plant mold closely related to algae. Instead of treating the problem with chemicals, the farm is treating it by planting a type of mustard that emits gas when it decomposes.
But this takes years.
"We had to simply not plant, and that was the hardest decision we've made in the history of this farm," Tawczynski said.
He said the good agricultural practices his family has employed for 60 years or more led to the disease because it adheres to organic matter in the soil.
"This wasn't a problem even 10 years ago," he said.
Selectman Eric Gabriel spoke of the ongoing situation between Housatonic Water Works, which serves more than 800 residents, and the town over outdated infrastructure and unclean water. He brought a sample from one of his neighbors that was taken two weeks ago, and the water was brown with particles in it.
"It's been a very, very controversial topic in our town, because the water company is a private company that's been owned since the early 1980s by the same family, and it's been neglected," he said.
"There's been very little money put in, to say the least, and no money has been put back."
The pipes are more than 100 years old in most locations, he said, and about 30 percent are made of unidentified materials.
Residents have urged the town to purchase the water company and make it public, and Gabriel reported ongoing negotiations. A town-led survey revealed that needed repairs would cost around $30 million.
A consent order with the state Department of Public Utilities requires the company to install a manganese filtration facility by next spring.
"There has been a lot of work with the state in terms of talking to the [Environmental Protection Agency] and DPU and trying to work out something, and at the same time, having a parallel track of what does acquisition look like for the town to take it over so it's a municipal water company?" Davis said.
"Rather than private, because then we would be opened up to better grants, more funding that would have a better rate."
Brittany Ebeling, executive director of the Berkshire Environmental Action Team, and Jane Winn, retired director, discussed the GE/Housatonic River PCB cleanup and recent success in getting peaker plants decommissioned.
Winn offered insight into the proposed Upland Disposal Facility on Woodland Road in Lee that would house low-level PCB-contaminated sediment. This has been another controversial topic for South County, with residents raising health concerns over the polychlorinated biphenyls.
She reported that negotiations with General Electric have led to 100 additional acres of PCB-contaminated sediments being taken out of the river, less capping in the river, more cleanup in Pittsfield, and quality of life support for towns.
"The big compromise was, yes, you can have one landfill, it's going to be 1,500 feet away from the river. It's going to only have low-level PCBs, so less than 50 parts per million, but built to high-level standards," Winn explained.
"And it's going to be in a site that you're going to get to see that is pretty well degraded and is still close enough to the worst part of the river, Woods Pond, which has most of the contamination, that it can be hydraulically pumped up to there, so less traffic on the roads."
She said GE already has set a precedent with three dumps, and had scoped out non-ideal properties, so the compromise of one dump was reached to avoid possibly losing in court.
"Right now, we feel the river is the dump, it's causing problems, and getting it into a high-level standard is a good thing," she said.
"Not everybody agrees with us and feels that that might not have happened if we had gone to court. We think the precedent is out there, and we got a good deal."
Ebeling said the former peaking power plant site on the way to the UDF just looks like a brownfield today, "which is exactly what it is, but it used to be the site of a highly polluting peaking power plant."
Facilities on Woodland Road and on Doreen Street in Pittsfield were shut down in 2022 and have been removed entirely, with usable parts auctioned off. The remaining is Pittsfield Generating Co. on Merrill Road, owned by Hull Street Energy.
Peaking power plants — also known as peaker plants — run when there is a high electricity demand.
"Our conversations with Cogentrix (owner of the Woodland Road and Doreen Street plants) resulted in the decommissioning of another facility in West Springfield, which has kind of become the poster child for clean energy success of peaker plant transition in the state," Ebeling reported.
"They not only decommissioned this major plant in West Springfield, formerly referred to as the asthma capital of the United States, but they are also adding solar and battery storage, which is really being uplifted by the fact that Massachusetts has the [Clean Peak Energy Standard], which offers financial incentives to plant owners to make this transition."
She pointed to the 10-12-year difference in average life expectancy between the Morningside and West Side neighborhoods of Pittsfield and its more affluent southeast areas. Pittsfield Generating is located in the Morningside neighborhood.
"It's so striking and extremely harrowing when we think about the impact of this and other cumulative pollution and cumulative harms being done to particular neighborhoods," Ebeling added.
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