By Cary Shuman
GreenRoots, led by its executive director Roseann Bongiovanni, hosted a well-attended community meeting on the Tobin Bridge Lead Paint Removal Project Tuesday night at the Chelsea Senior Center.
State Secretary of Transportation Monica Tibbits-Nutt provided an update about the four-year project of repainting and structural repairing of the Tobin Bridge (formerly the Mystic Bridge) that first opened in 1950.
Bongiovanni served as moderator of the meeting, calling on several residents who aired specific complaints about the negative health impacts and noise pollution being created by the project.
Tibbits-Nutt and her team from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (which owns and operates the bridge) pledged to address the health concerns of residents and collect additional data at the site.
One major complaint centered on the agency’s hotline. Residents said that they rarely receive a response after calling the hotline. And others remarked that the hotline has not always been operational as advertised.
Other complaints focused on excessive noise including from midnight to 2 a.m. in some instances. MassDOT officials remarked that construction is taking place six days per week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and seemed genuinely surprised to hear overnight work was occurring.
Residents also talked about dust, strong odors from paint and asked if it was safe to be outside and have windows open. Officials also discussed the mitigation they offered including air purifiers, vacuums, air conditioning units and white noise machines.
Tibbits-Nuttswith and her team left with many follow-up items to respond to Chelsea residents. Secretary Tibbits-Nutt agreed to come back to Chelsea in the spring for another community conversation and continued dialogue on the status of the lead paint remediation efforts.
Tibbits-Nutt received positive recognition for coming to Chelsea to meet directly with residents. State Undersecretary of Environmental Justice and Equity Maria Belen Power, a Chelsea resident, was in attendance, sitting next to Secretary Tibbits-Nutt during the 90-minute meeting.
City Manager Fidel Maltez welcomed the Mass DOT contingent to the city in his opening remarks. Director of Health and Human Services Tracy Nowicki, City Councillors Roberto Jimenez, Calvin T. Brown, and Lisa Santagate, and Chelsea School Committee member Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Neville attended the meeting.