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Elizabeth Warren to Host 30th Town Hall in Great Barrington

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GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren will be holding a town hall on Sunday, July 22, at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center. 
 
This will be the senator's 30th town hall event since taking office in 2013.
 
The state's senior senator said she will take questions from the audience and discuss her work standing up for working families of Massachusetts against powerful corporate interests. 
 
The event is free and open to the public and admission is first come, first served. No signs or posters will be allowed into the theater. The website for the event is here where those planning to attend can sign up or not, or comment. 
 
Registering ahead is a good idea because the senator's events tend to draw large crowds. Her town hall last July at Berkshire Community College in Pittsfield drew more than 800 people
 
The doors open at 1:30 p.m. and the event begins at 2:30 p.m. The Mahaiwe is located at 14 Castle St. The theater does not have a parking lot but there is public parking available on surrounding streets; a parking map in pdf format is available at this link.

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EPA Lays Out Draft Plan for PCB Remediation in Pittsfield

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

Ward 4 Councilor James Conant requested the meeting be held at Herberg Middle School as his ward will be most affected. 

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — U.S. The Environmental Protection Agency and General Electric have a preliminary plan to remediate polychlorinated biphenyls from the city's Rest of River stretch by 2032.

"We're going to implement the remedy, move on, and in five years we can be done with the majority of the issues in Pittsfield," Project Manager Dean Tagliaferro said during a hearing on Wednesday.

"The goal is to restore the (Housatonic) river, make the river an asset. Right now, it's a liability."

The PCB-polluted "Rest of River" stretches nearly 125 miles from the confluence of the East and West Branches of the river in Pittsfield to the end of Reach 16 just before Long Island Sound in Connecticut.  The city's five-mile reach, 5A, goes from the confluence to the wastewater treatment plant and includes river channels, banks, backwaters, and 325 acres of floodplains.

The event was held at Herberg Middle School, as Ward 4 Councilor James Conant wanted to ensure that the residents who will be most affected by the cleanup didn't have to travel far.

Conant emphasized that "nothing is set in actual stone" and it will not be solidified for many months.

In February 2020, the Rest of River settlement agreement that outlines the continued cleanup was signed by the U.S. EPA, GE, the state, the city of Pittsfield, the towns of Lenox, Lee, Stockbridge, Great Barrington, and Sheffield, and other interested parties.

Remediation has been in progress since the 1970s, including 27 cleanups. The remedy settled in 2020 includes the removal of one million cubic yards of contaminated sediment and floodplain soils, an 89 percent reduction of downstream transport of PCBs, an upland disposal facility located near Woods Pond (which has been contested by Southern Berkshire residents) as well as offsite disposal, and the removal of two dams.

The estimated cost is about $576 million and will take about 13 years to complete once construction begins.

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