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Last week contractors pumped most of the water from Cashman's Quarry
on the north side of Ricciuti Drive in West Quincy. It was discharged
to Cunningham Brook in Milton (see annotated
4/01 aerial).
Cashman's is located on the Finger parcel, a 28-acre site where the
Finger Company of Houston plans to build 316 apartments. The balance
of the parcel was acquired with taxpayer funds by private developers
Quarry Hills Associates in 1998. QHA facilitated the purchase by claiming
the parcel was needed for the new public ballfields and walking paths
it had announced as a major benefit of the Quarry Hills project. A
year later QHA informed Quincy that it intended to sell the parcel
and keep the proceeds.
The pumping produced a strong sulfide/"rotten
egg" odor at several downstream locations. As part of an agreement
with Friends of the Blue Hills and a residents' group, Finger will
test and remove sediments in Cashman's, which has a history of dumping.
The quarry, which currently has no outlet, is intended to become a
stormwater basin serving the apartment project, much of which will
drain to Cunningham Brook.
Water pumped from Cashman's crossed the 8-acre Bates parcel on its
way to Milton. Like the Finger parcel, the Bates parcel was acquired
by QHA with public funds. Last week the Quincy PATRIOT-LEDGER
reported that Quincy will receive $1 million from QHA's sale of
the parcel, although no buyer was named.
The story also reported that Quincy had granted a four-year extension
to QHA on its obligation to build a golf course and ballfields on
several hundred acres of leased public land now covered with Big Dig
dirt, and that QHA had contracted with Senior Tour Players, Inc. of
Brookline to manage the project.
Although the story emphasized the increased revenues Quincy will realize
from the completed course, it said nothing about how much completion
will cost, or how it will be financed.
Considering that the proposed eighteen holes in Quincy are still a
vast expanse of raw fill, and that no work has proceeded on the clubhouse
or ballfields for over a year, it is reasonable to ask whether QHA--whose
main asset is a lease, not a title--can attract funds sufficient for
completion. Information on a lender previously used by Senior Tour
Players, Inc. is available here
(off-site link).
Friends of the Blue Hills believes that the emphasis
in recent news accounts on the division of theoretical revenues from
a still-unbuilt 27-hole private golf course is a symptom of collective
hallucination, and that the real issue is the need to stabilize the
site as soon as possible, in order to end major environmental damages
that have plagued nearby wetlands, parks, and neighborhoods since
1997.
Friends of the Blue Hills also believes that
a more realistic source of financing might be sought in a $44 million
performance bond held on QHA's contractor,
McCourt Construction. The bond requires McCourt to cover and cap the
many millions of tons of Big Dig fill brought to Quincy.
But
a McCourt official told the LEDGER
last month that the company's work ended over a year ago, even though
several McCourt vehicles are still active on the site. The official
also said McCourt made its last delivery of Big Dig fill to Quarry
Hills in 2001, although more such fill was observed arriving as recently
as last week.
The Quarry Hills project started as a landfill, and it is still a
landfill--the largest ever built in Massachusetts. Quarry Hills Associates
is a private developer with no interest but its own gain. QHA has
allowed the primary beneficiaries of the Quarry Hills project--namely,
the Big Dig and its contractors--to bury public land under mountains
of contaminated excavate while assuming little or no responsibility
for the consequences. This is the real service provided by QHA, for
which it has been paid handsomely.
But unlike the Big Dig, QHA cannot go to Massachusetts taxpayers to
cover the costs of mismanagement and faulty estimates. As soon as
QHA concludes that collecting further income from dumping fees and
land sales will require a real and substantial investment in project
completion and mitigation, we expect they will grab what they can
and leave. They will blame others for their failures, and remind us
that they are businessmen, not do-gooders. In the meantime, they will
continue to tout their "world-class" golf course.
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