Did You Vote for this?
To the Editor,
The July 25, 2022 ScarpTec Engineering Report, (Appendix J – Rock Engineering Design and Recommendations for the Northeast Metro Regional Vocational Technical High School Project), tells us that students, faculty and visitors will be looking at and contending with a 365’ long, 35’ high sloped rock cliff along the back of the new proposed school.
At the base, will be a 12 foot wide ditch in front of the cliff that is supposed to catch all the falling rocks and ice, and protect the roadway. Site Access Restrictions & Safety Protocols recommend Security Fences and Signage so people are warned about fall hazards and excluded from the slope and crest areas.
To accomplish this, it will be part of the long-term blasting plan and is only part of the $40 million dollars that the Northeast Building Committee approved to destroy the forest and make way for the new school. When asked regarding the blasting, Michael Mallet from the Gilbane Building Company, informed us that the blasting will take about 6 months to clear the area. I later asked Mr. Mallet, just as he was preparing to leave, What about the destruction of the forest and his response was “ I do not get involved with the politics of a project, I am hired to build a building and told were to build it.”
In the report, Scartec Engineering states “ that they do not rule out the possibility that falling rocks could continue even after construction.” Vehicles should not be parked up against the slope or directly adjacent to the proposed catchment ditch. This is directly where the roadway will be located for student bus travel and used as an exit from the school.
All of this destruction could be avoided and millions of dollars could be saved if the new Vocational school were built on one of the other two buildings sites available – C-2 where the existing football and baseball field’s are located now. Both are in desperate need of a facelift due to lack of regular maintenance.
This is not what the taxpayers of Wakefield and the other communities in the district expected, when they voted in January for funding a new Northeast Metro Tech School. It is time to tell them again to change the school location and Save the Forest, that was the original plan 1934 when the property was transferred to the MDC in 1934 and was intended to be preserved for future generations. In 1965 when this section of Breakheart Reservation property was sold to the Northeast Vocational School, times were different and part of the land parcel was developed to make way for the new school. Times have changed, and the need to Save rather than Destroy a forest are greater now than they have ever been in the history of this town, this country, and the world.
Bob Brooks
Abutter
As an added note in case the Northeast Building Committee forgot to mention: a recent measurement of the trees in a one acre area that are 5” or greater in diameter including Pine, Hickory and Mature Oaks was 170 trees. With at least 12 acres being destroyed the total comes out to well over 2.000 trees that will gone forever.
Bob Brooks