View or download the July-August 2017 16-page issue here as a color PDF. . Articles in this issue: The Future of the Incinerator Site A Cure for Belmont Traffic Congestion New Lilac Planted On Town Green Fix the Stormwater System; It’s The Law Environmental Events
View or download the May-June 2017 20-page issue here as a color PDF.
by Anne-Marie Lambert Water Quality update: On May 15, 2017, the Belmont Board of Selectmen approved and signed a 2017 EPA Administrative Order for Compliance on Consent with the EPA. This Order includes EPA water sample results through March 30 2016 and makes mandatory the town’s current plan for addressing water pollution. It also includes downstream water quality measurements from Cambridge in 2014 and 2015, and references water samples collected by the town in November 2016. Belmont has also recently posted their IDDE Plan 05-19-2017. The Belmont Media Center link to the May 15, 2017 meeting of the Belmont Board of Selectmen includes a discussion of this [READ MORE]
If 2017 is as Bad as 2016 . . . by Jeremy Marin We’ve just come through a very rainy April, but the summer of 2016 was one of the driest in recent memory. With global warming, the same conditions can occur again. If the summer of 2017 is dry, here’s how to take care of your trees. Just like there’s no single best tree for all yards, there’s no single best way to irrigate trees during periods of drought. The easiest and most effective options for one family will be difficult, frustrating, or impossible for others. Not all trees [READ MORE]
Tree Plantings and Pleasant Street Pickup by Radha Iyengar On Saturday, April 29, the Belmont Citizens Forum (BCF) in conjunction with the Judith K. Record (JKR) Memorial Conservation Fund held its Fifth Annual Lone Tree Hill Volunteer Day. The rain held off and the volunteers came out in full force. This year the work was divided between planting trees along the Pine Allee, and cleaning up the trash along South Pleasant Street (across from Star Market and Artefact Home & Garden). In 2015, the JKR Memorial Conservation Fund engaged Tree Specialists, Inc. of Holliston, MA, to inspect the health of [READ MORE]
Happy Trail to You by John Dieckmann On April 26, the Community Path Implementation Advisory Committee (CPIAC) and Pare Engineering, the Community Path Feasibility Study contractor, held a public meeting to present their final evaluation of route alternatives for the path, construction cost estimates, and potential funding sources. From west to east, the end-to-end route that ranks highest in the evaluation methodology consists of the following segments: • At the Waltham city line, the path would be on the north side of the commuter rail tracks, then as it approaches Waverley Square it rises to street level and crosses Lexington [READ MORE]
Anne-Marie Lambert (far left) and Kevin Gallagher (sixth from the left, with sunglasses), local poet and author of the recently published book Loom, about the Massachusetts textile industry and its relation to the surge in demand for slave labor in the South in the 19th century, led a walk at Rock Meadow on April 29. “Through poetry,” said Lambert, “we explored the landscape and history of this part of Belmont and Waltham.”
Belmont’s Semiannual Big Recycling Day Saturday, May 13, 9 AM–1 PM The semiannual Big Recycling Day is your chance to clean out all that stuff you didn’t want and includes paper shredding, electronics, rigid plastics, eyeglasses, books, CDs, DVDs, propane tanks, and bicycles (no cardboard or styrofoam). Info at belmont-ma.gov/recycling-trash-information, or 617-993-2689. Note: Belmont Residents only. ID required. Town Yard, 37 C Street, Belmont. Fresh Pond Day Saturday, May 20, 11 AM-3 PM Celebrate the land, water, wildlife, and people that make Fresh Pond Reservation a unique and vital part of Cambridge. Fresh Pond Day is the Cambridge Water Department’s annual [READ MORE]
View or download the March-April 2017 20-page issue here as a color PDF. View or download the March-April 2017 20-page issue here as a black-and-white PDF.
Neighborhood Fears Water Displacement by John DiCocco The Mugar Wetlands in East Arlington is a triangular parcel that borders Route 2 westbound, adjacent to the Thorndike Park playing fields, and just across Route 2 from the Vox on Two apartments and Lanes & Games Bowling. The Mugar family, owners for more than 50 years, wants to develop it with townhouses and an apartment building. Residents in the town of Arlington, led by the Coalition to Save the Mugar Wetlands (CSMW) are opposed. In dispute is whether the land can handle the water displacement, whether the neighborhood can handle more people, [READ MORE]
Election for Belmont Selectman and Others: Tuesday, April 4 Compiled by John DiCocco Each year we ask candidates for selectman about issues they will likely face in the next three years. This year Guy Carbone and Adam Dash are running for the seat of Sami Baghdady, who retired after three terms as selectman. They were allotted 1,000 words each to distribute as they saw fit. Belmont Citizens Forum: Now that development pressure is growing again, how can Belmont improve its planning process Guy Carbone: Belmont is a neighborhood of residences. Town committees should consider the opinions of Belmont residents concerning [READ MORE]
Hoping The Cleanup Is Clean by Virginia Jordan and John DiCocco “The CVS has come down.” Or for Belmont residents of a certain age, “Highland Farms,” or even “the A&P” has come down. Each of these businesses once occupied the building at 527 Common Street (at the corner of Belmont Street). But that 6,200 square foot space in Cushing Square has been left vacant for years. Acton resident and developer Chris Starr, operating as Smith Legacy Partners LLC, owned that parcel, and with it and other parcels he acquired, created the initial proposal for the Cushing Village development in 2012. [READ MORE]
Volunteers Monitor Every Month by Anne-Marie Lambert Almost every month for more than 16 years, Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA) volunteers have been monitoring water quality at the location where the Winn’s Brook culvert flows into Little Pond. In the early morning of August 17, 2016, I walked to the end of a public path off Brighton Street, near the intersection with Hoitt Road. I watched as Roger Wrubel and Doug Matson took out their MyRWA sampling gear and carefully scooped water samples into test tubes. They were measuring dissolved oxygen, turbidity (a measure of suspended particles), nutrients [READ MORE]
The Impact of Drought on the Mystic Watershed by Andy Hrycyna People living in the Mystic River watershed have been relatively unaffected by the recent historic drought. Cities and towns have not demanded use restrictions, like bans on watering lawns, for instance. But don’t let that fool you. The absence of mandates to conserve is an accident of where our towns’ water supply happens to originate. It does not mean that our area is immune to the drought. First, some background. An Historic Drought 2016 was the driest summer ever recorded in Boston, with 3.92 inches of rain in June, [READ MORE]
DCR Pays for Paving According to Larry Kiernan of the Friends of the MCRT (Mass Central Rail Trail), the state Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) plans to pave the rail trail for the entire length of the Eversource access road, from the Wayland Library to the bridge at the far end of Weston, with a plan for completion in 2017. Including the town center piece (completed already in stone dust) there will be almost five miles of a bike and pedestrian-friendly path between Wayland and Weston. DCR, Eversource, and the towns are still discussing amenities, additional landscaping, and more, [READ MORE]
Featured Event: Poetry Walk at Rock Meadow Saturday, April 29, 2-3:30PM Anne-Marie Lambert will be joined by Kevin Gallagher, local poet and author of the recently published book Loom, about the Massachusetts textile industry and its relation to the surge in demand for slave labor in the South in the 19th century. “Through poetry,” says Lambert, “we will explore the landscape and history of this part of Belmont and Waltham.” Meet at the small Rock Meadow parking lot on Mill Street. Bike racks are available and there is more parking across the street. Woolapalooza at Drumlin Farm Friday, March [READ MORE]
A Cleaner Town, One Driveway at a Time by Madeleine Barr Lara Hirner and Jason Reed, the first Belmont residents to purchase an EV through the Belmont Drives Electric program, with their new Chevrolet Volt. Join the movement. Belmont is one of the top five towns in Massachusetts for electric vehicle adoption. Belmont Drives Electric (BDE) is a community initiative launched in October 2016 designed to highlight the benefits of driving electric vehicles (EVs) and make it easy for you to get behind the wheel. Through this initiative, Belmont residents in cooperation with several local dealers have taken test drives [READ MORE]
Go West, Young Rider by John Dieckmann When completed, the Mass Central Rail Trail (MCRT) will stretch 104 miles, from North Point Park (opposite the Museum of Science at the Boston-Cambridge line), all the way to Northampton. The Belmont Community Path would eventually be a segment of the MCRT. As the community path feasibility study moves forward here in Belmont, several towns to our immediate west are making ongoing progress developing segments of the trail. The epicenter of trail progress today is Wayland, which is likely to be first to complete the projects listed below. We’ll describe the plans town-by-town [READ MORE]
Friends of Fresh Pond Reservation Annual Meeting and Potluck Supper Sunday, January 22, 5-7 PM Help us celebrate over 15 years of educational programs and stewardship. Enjoy good food and learn about the activities of the Friends group. Following supper, we will briefly review the past year, then share ideas for future programs and projects at Fresh Pond in a relaxed roundtable discussion. Guests and newcomers welcome. RSVP to Catherine Pedemonti at friendsoffreshpond@yahoo.com. Basement of Neville Place, 650 Concord Avenue, Cambridge Winter Nature Storytime at Fresh Pond Friday, January 27, 10-11 AM Friends of Fresh Pond host children and their [READ MORE]
First Goal is 50 New Electric Vehicles in Town By Jan Kruse. Photos by Emily Woods. BDE co-chair Marty Bittner (left) and volunteer Ade Baptista check out a Tesla Model X electric car. Experts predict that electric vehicles (EVs) are the wave of the future, but for Belmont, the future is now. Belmont Drives Electric (BDE) is a new community-driven program to promote the benefits of EVs, and is supported by the Belmont Energy Committee, Belmont Light, Sustainable Belmont, and other Belmont EV enthusiasts. Why Promote Electric in Belmont Now? In 2016, the Belmont Energy Committee updated the assessment of [READ MORE]