The Waste Land

Here is no water but only rock

Rock and no water and the sandy road

The road winding above among the mountains

Which are mountains of rock without water

If there were water we should stop and drink

Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think…

­—T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

A tour of the Housatonic Railroad’s waste transfer facility in Hawleyville this week evoked the parched images of Eliot’s epic poem of universal despair. On Tuesday morning the site was dusty and desolate as industrial sites tend to be, but the tour guides, company officials, were upbeat, seeing promise in their plans to expand and upgrade the waste transfer station there. Unlike Eliot’s waste land, however, there is water in Hawleyville, and that has drawn the scrutiny of state and local officials who are concerned about the environmental risks to wetlands associated with the construction and eventual operation of the facility. This week, the town issued another cease and desist order so that everyone involved could stop and think about what is happening in Hawleyville.

Housatonic Railroad is practiced at ignoring the town, rebuffing a notice of violation in 2007 and working right through another notice of violation earlier this month. In 2007, the railroad was exempted by federal law from local regulations. And now, the company argues that the subsequent Clean Railroads Act of 2008, designed to address the lack of environmental oversight of railroad activities, does not give local wetlands agencies jurisdiction over railroad property. Some local and state officials think otherwise, and the state’s Attorney General Richard Blumenthal last month agreed that the proposed expansion of the waste transfer site “certainly raises serious environmental and legal issues and must be addressed as soon as possible.”

The town’s efforts to enforce state wetlands laws were slowly pushing the issue toward a court fight. State Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) inspectors have already concluded that land protected by state wetlands restrictions has been covered with fill. As the DEP processes the permit application for the expansion of its facility, Housatonic Railroad pressed ahead with site preparations for its facility and its attendant railroad spur, and according to local wetlands officials, with its wetlands violations.

While it is true that the Clean Railroads Act of 2008 may give Housatonic Railroad the right to ignore local rules and regulations, the act specifically places the railroad under the authority of the state. What company officials may be forgetting is that the wetlands restrictions local officials are so desperate to enforce in Hawleyville are not local rules or ordinances, but state laws administered by the DEP through local agencies. Section 22a-42d of the act even stipulates that if municipalities fail to enforce state wetlands laws, the DEP commissioner may intervene and do the job for them.

Finally, the state started to push back this week against the railroad’s reluctance to recognize state requirements for wetlands preservation. It was not the DEP but Attorney General Blumenthal who took the important step Wednesday of ordering Housatonic Railroad to stop all illegal work at the site or face “prompt action in court.” That seemed to get the attention of railroad officials, who showed up at a show cause hearing of the Inland Wetlands Commission Wednesday night, agreeing to cease wetland filling activities and to submit a wetlands application, though they still maintain the commission has no jurisdiction over their operations.

As much as the Housatonic Railroad wants us to ignore the water seeping in and around the big plans it has for its waste land, we have to remember that we are not amongst the rock where “one cannot stop or think.” A full stop and a lot of extra thought is needed right now.