The Scarlet Letter. If you marry but cheat you wear a red A for adultery. If you collect junk but recycle you wear a red E for Excel.
“The Scarlet E” was but one chord on Attorney John Markey’s violin, music he played to a judge on Monday defending Excel Recycling, LLC against the Freetown Board of Selectmen.
Excel has an annual Second-Hand Merchandise license, which can be restricted and revoked by the BOS. Excel understood this on June 1, 2015 when the license was approved; yet, this “understanding” landed in court.
On June 15, 2015, without further ado (and without filing necessary Notification of Hazardous Waste Activity with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection), Excel embarked on what was to be a magic carpet ride.
No restrictions, conditions, or special permit allowed Excel to sow oats, metallic ones. The mega-shredder fired up. Houses rocked. Residents saw the sky sparkle. Birds built nests with extra fluff. Beds vibrated. Smoke was everywhere. Sound psychedelic? A trip it has been for sure.
Complaints from neighbors rolled in by the truckload. No one could sleep day or night. This might be the only scrap yard that must work 80 hours a week to turn a profit to pay debtor -- drumroll -- $10 million.
Who would loan that money to a company on an annual license, dependent on a copasetic symbiosis between quiet neighborhood and car eating machine? That, Sherlock, isn’t something to bet your life savings on.
Residents and town officials were patient. MassDEP was overseeing the project. How bad could it get? What choice was there but to wait and see?
Wait and see devolved from facility compliance, which will never occur, to health diagnoses, which will, either by breathing the air or drinking the water.
Mother Nature joined the fight on Friday, March 2, 2018. Excel’s northern barrier wall toppled in hurricane force wind gusts during the height of Winter Storm Riley. The wall was built of shipping containers stacked three high atop a concrete block base.
Police responded to residents’ calls of two loud crashes and the wall downed. Excel told police it was taking the wall down “proactively.” Police should’ve handed over a dictionary and a weather app. Shouldn’t an outdoor industrial facility -- one that can launch metal projectiles -- have a storm preparedness plan?
Excel hauled away dented containers. Three containers dug into debris piles and laid strewn atop expensive new sound mitigation equipment awaiting installation. Excel must have “proactively” placed them there.
Good neighbors tell the truth.
Excel sued the BOS in July 2017 for placing an hours of operation restriction on its license during annual May license renewals. The case was removed to federal court for dismissal, and town counsel filed in Bristol Country Superior Court to enforce license conditions.
Excel argued the BOS lacked authority to restrict the license. The judge decided in Excel’s favor. Town counsel filed for reconsideration of that decision submitting affidavits from residents, yielding success. Excel appealed, and at Monday’s hearing complained the hours restriction was “arbitrary and capricious” and in need of modification.
The matter is, once again, under advisement.
After the hearing, I received an email from the town clerk. As per my records request, the “missing” June 1, 2015 BOS meeting minutes, the meeting at which selectmen approved Excel’s license, were finally posted online.
Minutes revealed that all parties, including Excel owners Marty and Jonathan Costa, understood the building inspector could resolve Excel matters in court and the BOS had “a lot of flexibility” on Excel’s license. According to minutes, Costa claimed to be “very aware of the impact we have” yet followed with, “we don’t want to have a condition placed on the license.” Adamant in their good neighbor spiel, they assured town officials, “We don’t feel there will be any complaints on our property.”
Seems the only “arbitrary and capricious” act here was Excel suing the BOS for something it knew was well within the board’s authority and for good reason.
Markey, in court documents, footnotes Excel as “a scrap yard legally conducting an ‘as of right’ business in an Industrial Park.” Wrong. Excel is a scrap yard having since proven to be illegally conducting a specially permitted business, i.e., commercial recycler, in an Industrial Park. Excel Recycling buys scrap, processes it and sells the recyclable scrap for remelting domestically and internationally.
Add a Scarlet R for recycler anyway. Excel, a green industry? No. Excel, a Scarlet Letter? Yes. Remember that when driving past their billboards.
Leia Adey
Freetown