[CPEO-BIF] Weston, Massachusetts land purchase stalled

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Harvard Land Sale To Weston Stalls

By William N. White
HARVARD CRIMSON (MA)
January 17, 2010

Harvard's plans to sell a 62.5-acre parcel of land to the Town of 
Weston, Mass. have been temporarily derailed after engineers discovered 
high levels of lead and arsenic in the soil, and the sale - nearly a 
month overdue - has been put on hold until the University’s cleanup of 
the land.

Weston, an affluent town of 12,000 located 10 miles west of Cambridge, 
had already secured financing for the $22.5 million land purchase, said 
Town Manager Donna S. VanderClock. In 2006, Weston had agreed to 
purchase the property from Harvard, which had acquired the open plot of 
land in Weston - called the Case Estates - as a gift in 1942.

But the recent discovery of potentially hazardous levels of arsenic in 
the soil - likely the remains of lead-based pesticides once used in 
orchards on the site - has brought the transaction to a momentary stop, 
according to the town’s Web site.


...

For the entire article, see
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/1/17/land-harvard-according-town/

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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