I was just going through a stack of old newspapers, wondering why I saved them and also why they didn't make the the recycling bin ten years ago...page 24... article written by Christopher Rogers. Title of article, Plant plan fails at GSA site. I tried to find this on-line so I could cut & paste but no such luck, so I will type this as it's written.

 Innovative environmental cleanup deemed ineffective on Greenough Boulevard land.
                  by Christopher Rogers, Tab & Press Staff(April 16, 1998)

   Efforts to clear the former General Services Administration site of depleted uranium and other harmful contaminants have been delayed one year because a new remedy officials were hoping to implement proved ineffective.
   Officials with the Army Corps of Engineers will spend the next six months soil testing and developing a new remediation plan for the federal property at the corners of Arsenal Street and Greenough Blvd. They hope to begin remediation efforts sometime in 2000.
   Environmental engineers tested a new remediation method at the site where plants would be grown on parts of the property contaminated by depleted uranium. The plants would take up the uranium with other soil nutrients. When the uranium was soaked up from the soil, the plants would be harvested and disposed.
   Officials tested the plant remedy learned last fall, the method would not be effective on the Watertown property. Now engineers will continue testing and hope to develop a plan using traditional remediation methods of digging up and removing contaminated soil.
   "It was disappointing because this was some innovative technology and we thought we were going to save some of the traditional 'tow-it-away' remediation work,"  Army Corps of Engineer project manager Dennis Waskiewicz said.
   During World War ll and for some years afterward, the Army used the GSA site as a storage depot and staging area for low-level radioactive materials, including depleted uranium. Army personnel also burned depleted uranium chips in an open pit located at the facility.
   Efforts to remediate the contaminated soil began in the 1970s.
                                   Turning to Sawin's Pond
   Engineers are continuing to test both the GSA site and nearby Sawin's Pond. A brook runs from the pond onto the GSA site, which is a certified wetland area.
   Last fall the town took ownership of Sawin's Pond after its owner failed to pay property taxes in excess of $10,000, according to Town Treasurer Martin Walsh. The pond's fprmer owner, Maximos Hatziiliades, has until October to try and reclaim the property in land court and settle his tax bill.
   Hatziiliades did not return a phone call from the Tab & Press. However, town officials are starting to look at the pond's enviromental record and consider what may need to be done to continue cleanup efforts there.
   Sawin's Pond has been listed with the state's Department of Environmental Protection for more than 10 years. For decades, industries located around the pond had dumped waste into the pond, according to DEP records. At least two oil spills have also been recorded there. One occurred in 1983, when 1,100 gallons poured into the pond from catch basins. A leaking tank upstream at the Boston Edison building was deemed responsible, according to DEP files.
   Town Conservation Agent Thomas Brady said no cleanup efforts were planned yet for Sawin's Pond.
   "Maybe sometime. Right now we will explore what is out there," Brady said. "It has been under the [DEP's] 21E program for a long time. We will look at their files."
   The town's 1996 Open Space Plan illustrated a vision of using Sawin's Pond as a living ecological classroom if the town could ever reclaim the property.

So here we are 10 years,7 months, 13 days later and I was watching a program on local cable(Comcast #9) with Susan Falkoff being interviewed on Voices Near and Far talking about this same land still being tested. This begs the question, "Why is this taking so long to accomplish?' and 'How can concerned citizens of Watertown help get this on a faster track?' , 'Why hasn't the Federal government made this a priority cleanup since they contaminated part of our town in the first place?' ........ inquiring minds need to know!

The Historical Commission is going to begin an inventory of all the barns, carriage houses and out building in town.  These kinds of buildings are getting scarcer and scarcer in town because the original use of these buildings is obsolete--no one keeps cows, goats, horses or other farm animals.  I also haven't seen any horse-drawn carriages lately either.  Needless to say, it is a building form that is obsolete and is not being built any longer.We're interested in learning what's out there, its condition and what's happening with these buildings. Do you know of any barns, carriage houses or other large outbuildings around town?

Sorry, No Drive-Through

Originally uploaded by lisa.williams.

What is it with the driving-into-buildings in this town? You'd think it was a trend or something. Here's some cleanup going on at Coolidge Hardware after a car drove into the storefront earlier this week.

Last chance liquidation

Originally uploaded by lisa.williams.

H2otown saw them everywhere driving across the country this summer: people standing outside in the hot sun, holding last-chance liquidation signs.

She hadn't seen many of them around here until a few weeks ago, when she saw these. The guy holding the sign got hired as day labor, for minimum wage; during a visit to the store yesterday, H2otown asked an employee if they had another job yet. No, they replied. And they didn't expect to find one before Christmas, either.

Does H2otown seem a bit grinchy if she observes that no one seems to know about the day-laborer or the retail clerk, or even know who they are? MIA from the pages of the papers, or the pixels at CNN, who operate at a much grander scale.

So, let's scale up then. The Arsenal Mall is one of the town's top 10 taxpayers. Could the loss of an anchor tenant cause the collapse of the property itself, as it did here? The good news is, probably not, at least not for now. Simon Property Group, which owns the mall, looks very good against one of its main competitors, General Growth Properties, which teeters on the brink of collapse. Over the past year, Simon's stock price has been cut in half, and the historic Boston Garden scoreboard that hangs on the mall's second floor has a few tacky videoscreens bolted to the bottom but is otherwise dark. But a stock price of around $60 today is a lot better than how Linens and Things is doing -- the company is bankrupt and the stock has been delisted.

The St. Stephen's Church Bazaar is being held at the Armenian Cultural and Educaitonal Center, 47 Nichols Avenue, Watertown on Friday Nov. 7 and Saturday Nov. 8 - come on down for delicious chicken, lamb and losh kebab, kheyma, kufta, rice and more.  Have some delicious pastries, deserts and armenian delicacies to satisfy your sweet tooth. There will be a silent and live auction with many items including signed Patriots memorabelia, Patriots tickets, Celtics tickets and more.  Live auction takes place on Friday and Saturday evenings.  Silent auction items available for viewing and bidding all day Friday and Saturday.  

Here we are on the precipice of a historic election, and I cannot find local people to talk to about it.  Argghhh.