New Bedford is now considered the most waste-burdened city in Massachusetts, with four active landfills serving nearly 100,000 residents. City Councilor Leo Choquette says the toll is both physical and emotional.
Choquette said, “New Bedford was once the richest city per capita in the world. In the late 1800s. When it was the Whaling capital of America. Now, we’re the heaviest burdened trash city.”
He grew up near the Crapo Hill Landfill on the Dartmouth-New Bedford line.
“My father fought in a small organization trying to keep out the Crapo Hill Landfill,” he said.
“In the late 80s my dad was protecting our family home, which was my grandparents in the 60s. As a town hall member, he’d attend Dartmouth town meetings against State Rep John George who wanted Crapo Hill Landfill built. Of course, it was.”
Choquette says he’s seen a correlation between living near the landfill and cancer diagnoses.
Choquette said, “If you look at the houses from 568 Hill Rd up until around 718 High Hill Rd, there is at least one person with cancer in nearly every home. Not all those forms of cancer are deadly.”
His father survived non-Hodgkin lymphoma. His wife, diagnosed with bowel cancer at 41, also recovered.
Choquette said, “My wife’s next-door neighbor died from multiple myeloma. The house next door to them — the man had testicular cancer. The house on the other side of them, a lady had breast cancer.”
He believes their shared proximity to the landfill is no coincidence.
“I don’t know all the dynamics of that landfill. I do know they’re looking to construct a new cell over there. They’re calling it cell number seven.”
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the Greater New Bedford Regional Refuse Management District are working to build Cell 7, a nearly four-acre expansion that could add seven years of capacity.
Choquette said, “There are supposed to be rules and statutes in the commonwealth that protect environmental justice communities from having a concentration of trash like we have now.”
He also faults regulatory agencies for not doing enough.
“I personally explained to the Mass DEP the incidences of Cancer in the Crapo Hill Landfill and how the trash is going to harm the community. There’s no way the technological advances and preparation done for trash containment is going to work 100 percent of the time. For example, lithium batteries could be brought in — which are a dangerous fire hazard,” he said.
Choquette added, “No one wants to live next to pollution and trash. I would feel betrayed if I paid taxes in a city that didn’t put up a fight to stop this. You fight the fight no matter how much it costs the city.”
Groups like South Coast Neighbors United have joined the fight.
Choquette said, “South Coast Neighbor’s United are wonderful individuals who have been fighting for almost six years against this project.”
SCNU, a nonprofit focused on environmental education, says COVID-19 worsened New Bedford’s waste issues.
Wendy Morrill, the co-founder of SCNU, said, “We don’t have great solutions for waste in the city which is what’s really sad.”
Reducing and recycling more could help.
Morrill said, “Removing food and yard scraps would reduce landfill life by 60% which studies have shown.”
New Bedford also has high rates of pollution and disease.
Morrill said, “It’s hard to maintain a healthy lifestyle if you don’t live in a healthy environment. Part of that environment is our waste production and our disposal processes.”
Packaging also poses health risks. “When you wrap food in plastic, and eat, those microplastics get into our system,” Morrill said.
She added, “A predominantly environmental justice community is also a community that has been historically marginalized and oppressed. They have a lower income bracket and are at the mercy of the producers.”
Morrill said, “I want to see meaningful enforcement with the environmental justice regulations in Massachusetts. If a community is designated as environmental justice ... there shouldn’t even be a conversation about whether landfills should be expanded, or additional waste transfer stations should be built here.”
Recently, the New Bedford Board of Health rejected a proposed waste transfer station, ending a six-year push by Parallel Products to convert its bottle recycling plant into a $30 million solid waste site.
