Report says town could reap $5.7 million in annual taxes if WIN develops ash landfill

By Mark E. Vogler

Commercial development of the 235 acres that make up WIN Waste Innovation’s ash landfill on Route 107 near its trash-to-energy incinerator could produce up to $5.7 million a year in annual tax revenue, according to a report compiled by Selectman Michael Serino. “And that’s a forever tax revenue – that’s not a one-time payment,” Serino told fellow members of the Ash Landfill Closure Committee this week after he presented his 11-page analysis of developing the site.

“I think this is the best option for Saugus. It would be a ‘forever’ economic development opportunity for Saugus and it would not further harm our environment,” Serino said.

“WIN’s proposal is to continue to dump toxic ash into the landfill that is harmful to our environment and the town would be left with a 100-foot high toxic ash landfill with no development opportunities and no ‘forever’ economic benefits for the Town of Saugus,” he said.

In his 11-page report, Serino notes that WIN Waste submitted plans to the Saugus Planning Board to subdivide its 235 acre landfill into 12 commercial lots in 2003, and 10 commercial lots in 2017. At that time, an engineering company representing WIN Waste said several potential uses of the property included an industrial park and a solar farm. Serino noted that WIN converting its ash landfill into a solar farm would generate about $1.2 million a year in potential tax revenue. But the town could generate even more tax revenue from the ash landfill if the landfill were developed for commercial use – up to $5.7 million in potential property tax revenue – according to Serino, who did the analysis using examples of potential development at each of the 10 commercial lots that encompass the ash landfill.

This year’s Annual Town Meeting created the five-member committee to identify timeframes for final closure, post closure, maintenance and monitoring and economic reuse possibilities after closure of the landfill. WIN Waste Innovations was invited to participate in the meetings as a non-committee member. But the company has refused the invitation, taking the position that the town should not be telling a private company what to do with its property.

WIN also prefers expansion of its ash landfill once it reaches its capacity – an option that the last two Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) commissioners have said would not be allowed under the current state environmental regulations.

“They [WIN officials] feel we have no authority over what they do with their land,” Committee Chair Peter Manoogian told members at this week’s meeting. But Manoogian – the Precinct 10 Town Meeting member who authored the article creating the committee – stressed that it was important for the committee to act as a fact-finding body to provide the town with important information related to the ash landfill and potential alternative uses of the landfill once the state has established a specific deadline for its closure.

Serino’s presentation about possible reuse of the ash landfill impressed Manoogian and other committee members. “That’s a tremendous amount of work you put into that,” Manoogian said.

“I just want to remind everyone that Mike was the chairman of the Board of Assessors and he had specialized training from the state to use the processes of assessment to put this together,” he said. “It’s quite compelling, and even if you’re off by a large factor, it’s still a lot more money that was offered in that host community proposal that three selectmen accepted. … And even if it came down to $2.5-million, it’s twice as much as what was proposed [by the Host Community Agreement].

WIN continues to support a nonbinding Host Community Agreement (HCA), which selectmen supported a year ago on a 3-2 vote as a precautionary measure in case the state weakens environmental regulations related to the landfill. That HCA has no legal basis under state law and under the Town of Saugus Charter. Furthermore, any HCA would have to be negotiated by the town manager and wouldn’t take effect unless the state allowed the company to expand its ash landfill.

If the state loosened the regulations at the ash landfill, the Board of Health would have authority to conduct site modification hearings to ultimately decide whether and how expansion of the ash landfill would proceed.

Saugus would receive $20 million over the next 20 years while WIN Waste could continue use of the ash landfill, according to the hypothetical HCA supported by a majority of the selectmen.

WIN is currently trucking 50 percent of its ash to a landfill in Shrewsbury to prolong the life of its ash landfill in Saugus. “They are obviously delaying the inevitable by taking the ash out,” Manoogian said.