To the editor:

​We may very well know who shot JFK and finally solve the mystery of where Jimmy Hoffa is buried before the “guardians of the Earth” on Beacon Hill find the power to bury a single landfill. Even from the South Shore, I can still see that ash pile in my mind — a monument to “temporary” solutions that have lasted longer than most careers.

​It is a testament to the endurance of the WIN Waste ash landfill that it has outlived the entire Route 1 nightclub era. Since it was “definitely” supposed to close in 1996, legendary spots like The Palace and The Continental (and “OTHER” nightclubs) have gone from packed dance floors to memories, yet the ash pile just keeps growing.

​The contrast with other industrial sites is stark. While companies like Aggregate Industries operate on finite reclamation cycles that result in closure and capping, the unlined pit in the Rumney Marsh continues to defy the laws of physics and political will. Having served as a Town Meeting Member in Saugus from 1989 until 2020, I’ve seen these cycles firsthand. In the early 2000s, as the representative for Precinct 4 where Aggregate resides, I helped spearhead the closure plan to ensure the site was properly managed and my neighbors were protected. We proved that industrial sites can have a hard end date.

​It’s a remarkable feat of political theater: we live in one of the “bluest” states in the Union, governed by a Beacon Hill supermajority that loves to lecture the world on green energy. Yet, these self-proclaimed environmentalists have spent decades virtue-signaling while allowing an unlined dump to sit in a protected salt marsh as if it were a historical landmark.

​Now, we are told the landfill is down to its last microscopic availability. It’s a masterclass in political taxidermy. They’ve taken a dead, unlined dump that should have been buried decades ago and are propping it up like it’s still breathing. We’ve been holding the funeral since the 90s, but Beacon Hill refuses to nail the coffin shut. Keeping a casket open for a week is a tragedy; keeping it open for thirty years while you wait for a “political opening” is ghoulish.

​What we are really witnessing is a “TESTAMENT TO THE POLITICAL ENDURANCE OF WIN WASTE.” They aren’t waiting for the last shovel of ash; they’re waiting for a shift in the Saugus political landscape to turn a “closure” into an expansion.

​But what do I know? I’m 50 miles away on the South Shore now. Apparently, even from this distance, the scale of this political absurdity is just as clear as the view of the ash pile itself. From 50 miles away, I can still smell the political stench!

Sincerely,

Al DiNardo

Town Meeting member, Plymouth, Massachusetts

Plymouth