Representatives from MassDOT met with the community last week to discuss the proposed Tobin Bridge painting and repair projects, but city officials said there are still issues that need to be addressed concerning the lead paint chips that have fallen off the bridge over the past several months.
Last month, GreenRoots Executive Director Roseann Bongiovanni sent an email to state Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver outlining concerns with the cleanup and outreach over the lead paint on the Tobin Bridge. Those concerns included issues surrounding outreach, mitigation, and cleanup efforts since the latest round of lead chips from the bridge were discovered in Chelsea neighborhoods.
At the meeting held at the Williams Middle School by MassDot on Wednesday, June 28, the focus was mainly on the upcoming $125 million bridge repair project for the portion of the Tobin in Chelsea. MassDOT officials have stated that the project will address the issues with lead paint falling from the bridge.
MassDOT officials also touched on the current clean up and interim measures being taken to address the lead chip issue. They stated that MassDOT has been working in the area for the past several weeks vacuuming up paint chips that have fallen from the bridge, with the paint chips then being disposed of offsite in accordance with environmental regulations.
MassDOT officials stated that they are continuing to coordinate with city officials and provide them weekly updates on progress of removal and performing regular weekly inspections and removal is ongoing that will continue until the larger bridge painting project gets underway.
An interim netting system is also to be installed in parallel with ongoing cleanup activities, with the system expected to begin in the beginning of July with MassDOT coordinating with the City of Chelsea on any local impacts.
Still, Director of Housing and Community Development Alex Train said there are still issues and concerns that MassDOT needs to address about the lead paint chips.
“Unfortunately, they didn’t address many of the issues highlighted in the letter directly during the presentation,” said Train. “They showcased a temporary netting system that will be installed imminently, as well as briefed the community on the longer-term repainting project. They expect they will issue a notice to proceed this fall, and a lot of the repainting activity will occur next spring in 2024.”
Train said the city, GreenRoots, and other community organizations will continue to try to work with MassDOT and the state to address mitigation efforts for the city and its residents.
“We are continuing to request that MassDOT set up a mitigation fund that can assist affected property owners as well as ensure that there are blood testing capabilities made available, particularly to families with youth, as well as financial resources that can help families with healthcare costs because of lead exposure,” said Train.
John Walkey, the interim co-director of GreenRoots, agreed that there are still questions about the mitigation efforts, as well as why the falling lead paint chips became an issue in the first place.
“It was a useful meeting to get some of the information they had about what their plans are going forward from the engineers working on that, but in terms of addressing some of the concerns we have related to public health and how this all happened in the first place, it wasn’t very useful on that front,” said Walkey.
GreenRoots is going to continue to work with the city and other organizations and individuals impacted by the falling lead paint chips, said Walkey. He added that the organization will also continue to seek answers about why the issues were not addressed earlier.
“We are now in the situation of a perfect storm of trying to do this project at the same time as other deferred maintenance projects like the Sumner Tunnel and different transportation projects,” said Walkey. “All of these things are hitting at the same time.”
The last time the Chelsea approaches on the Tobin were painted was in the 1990s, Walkey said, while the Boston side and the main part of the bridge were painted in the past 10-15 years. He questioned why there was not an opportunity for the Chelsea approaches to be addressed around the same time as the other parts of the bridge.
“It just felt like there was an opportunity to do it then, and now they are unable to implement this project on a fast track,” said Walkey. “It’s going to take two summers to do it because they can’t cut down the number of lanes because they have to take the added traffic from the Sumner. People in Chelsea are going to have to live not only with the traffic coming from people trying to get over from East Boston and Revere over to the Tobin Bridge and cutting through Chelsea … but we’re going to have two years of waiting for this bridge to get fixed that is raining lead down on us.”