SHUTESBURY — A petition filed by 21 Shutesbury residents is requiring town officials to create a Public Involvement Plan by mid-April for 66 Leverett Road, the planned location for a new town library where oil and other hazardous materials have been identified.

Town officials announced last week that a virtual Selectboard meeting on Wednesday, April 12, at 6 p.m. will present the draft Public Involvement Plan, solicit public comment on the plan and provide information about site conditions. The draft plan will be posted on the town website, shutesbury.org, before the meeting.

Under state law, the town is mandated to establish a Public Involvement Plan when a petition signed by 10 or more residents is submitted after a site receives a tier classification under the state Department of Environmental Protection’s waste site cleanup program.

As a Tier 1 site, the property is already going through the comprehensive phased Massachusetts Contingency Plan cleanup process. Fuss & O’Neill Inc. is undertaking response actions for the town.

In this case, the Selectboard received a petition from resident Amanda Alix, signed by 20 other residents, asking for the Public Involvement Plan on the Leverett Road site, also known as Lot O-32.

Hazardous materials have been detected on the property through multiple groundwater monitoring wells, including thallium, antimony, 2-methylnapthalene and oil, or volatile petroleum hydrocarbons, like C5-C8 aliphatics.

The area where the reportable conditions for the volatile petroleum hydrocarbons were identified had been leased by the U.S. Air Force and operated as the Shutesbury-Westover Remote Site between 1957 and 1967. The specific soil sample was collected in the vicinity of a historic underground gasoline storage tank, removed by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers in 1994, that was used to power an emergency generator for the remote site.

On Feb. 28, Selectboard Chair Rita Farrell responded to the petition by Alix, noting that a tier classification report had been filed with the DEP by Fuss & O’Neill in January.

“We appreciate your concern for the environmental health of Lot O-32,” Farrell wrote. “The town is also very concerned.”

Farrell mentioned steps that Fuss & O’Neill, as the licensed site professional, is taking, including trying to define the limits of any potential contaminants at the Westover remote site and recommended steps needed.

M.N. Spear Memorial Library Director Mary Ann Antonellis said the gasoline release is at the southern end of the property near the former Air Force radio tower.

“It has no impact on the library project, which is at the north end of the property,” Antonellis said.

On March 13, Matthew Kissane, a senior geologist with Fuss & O’Neill, informed the state of an amended report on the reportable concentrated groundwater, or RCGW: “The two heavy metals that exceeded their respective RCGW-1 criteria during the Dec. 2, 2022 and Jan. 11, 2023, groundwater monitoring events were thallium and antimony, respectively,” he wrote.

In a Feb. 17 letter, Kissane recommended quarterly monitoring.

“Based upon the results of subsequent groundwater monitoring events at the site, it may be prudent to install one or more additional wells in the vicinity of the currently identified petroleum release area, in order to better define the nature and extent of the impacted groundwater and evaluate potential fluctuations in groundwater flow patterns.”

DEP spells out the Public Involvement Plan process. Within 60 calendar days of responding to the petitioners, a draft Public Involvement Plan must be prepared and presented at a public meeting, along with an update on the status of the site.

All comments received must be reviewed, considered and responded to.

“The plan must then be finalized and implemented throughout the remainder of the cleanup process.”

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