Barite Mines
The barite mines continue to be front page news. They hit the front page of the NH Register today (by Luther Turmelle).
UPDATE
Here is a June 1 article in the Waterbury Rep-Am (by Lauresha Xhihani).
Tim White
Town Council, 4th District
TimWhite98@yahoo.com
16 comments:
Tim,
I appreciate the varoius postings on the mine issue, but what are your thoughts and comments.
Having spent time discussing this in executive session, I'm refraining from comment on this topic.
Another issue where the people of th own may end up paying for this. Look at what caused this, the demand for more tax revenue no doubt created the ability for building codes or known problems to be overlooked. Follow the money trail, who was the builder of these homes, who was the Building Inspector and who was going to make a buck from it. Maybe the best thing that happens to this town is a shock to property values, let people move out, let property prices drop, let the education budget be cut due to lack of students. When you come to think about this, a mining disaster is maybe what this town needs.
the last guy probably thought Hurrican Katrina was a good way to cause New Orleans to do urban renewal
I said on a post before that there was something missing from the New Haven Register article last week and it appears from the Republican article today that they've been able to uncover that missing "link".
And while the anonymous comment above is rather extreme, there is a tiny bit of truth behind it. Cheshire has been hiding this issue obviously for quite some time. It appears on the surface that it's been for purely selfish reasons. They should be ashamed. Ashamed that they've neglected to look out for the well being of the town residents. Ashamed that they've refused to advise current and potential homeowners of this existing problem. And after all this time, it's a shame that they have finally decided to try to make an example out of one home owner when this problem exists for so many others. Perhaps some humility could turn out to be a very good thing for Cheshire.
I agree that the above comment may be a bit on the extreme side, but there is some truth to it. The point can be made that in order to develop the Town and obtain tax revenue to fund growth that the mine issue was overlooked for a variety of reasons. An interesting debate could be made, but for another day. The mine issue, needs to be addressed, all of the mines; barite, copper and lead. The study should relate the mine locations to water aquifiers and the cancer study, to see if there is/was a relationship to homes with wells and cancer issues and the relationship to the streams, aquifiers and wells. Of all of the mine types, barite is the least harmful to human health, look at the locations of the copper and lead mines. A concern going forward is this is a test case, what happens if the Town is held liable for the cost to repair, condemn, relocate etc. Can you imagine the potential tax increase to fund this project?
The town should have thought about many of these things before they allowed the properties to be built on.
Wallingford remidied the issue when they allowed a development to be built on wetlands. They bought the homes back, and relocated the homeowners.
I guess a tax increase "trumps" the potential loss of human life should a collapse occur when children are playing, or a school bus passes over a road as it collapses.
Or perhaps as in the case of the Baker's, a "good faith" purchase of a home to raise their children leads to what they have on their hands today. I am sure that they would have never purchased the home had they known about the existence of mines in the neighborhood.
Instead of looking to spend $900+K on an astro turf field for the High School, maybe the town can address the issues that will plague the town for many years beyond 2006.
For some odd reason, I think the short-sightedness of protecting the tax base, or property values has blinded some from the true issues at hand.
since I am being screwed since three decades of town officials let Fiske play games with his decrepit dam in Strathmore, I'm a bit cynical about this whole thing
The homeowner in this case bought the property without using a real estate agent. Now, I'm not saying the real estate agent would have contributed to the issue and said to the interested buyer, there are mnes on this property. The real estate agent must make known what they know of the property. If the seller chose not to declare knowledge of mines, the responsible party is the seller. In this case it appears the seller was the original owner of the home, so they knew of the mines. All parties will hide and blame the other, nothing will be accomplished...again. The Town should take all of their mine reports on file, develop a map that shows the locations of all known mines and highlight the porperties affcted by mines. That is the first step. The next steps will be determined by the homeowners, lawyers, Town officials, lawyers, lawyers and more lawyers. Any propoerty that is known to have a mine, mine shaft or tailings should be marked as "not for development." If this is done, then the latest issue about the barn on the old Lassen farm will be brought to a halt. The property has several mines on it, the barn is loaded with lead paint, the grounds are contaminated from decades of cow manure waste and who knows what else. We should think twice about allowing thaty barn to be restored. It would not surprise me to hear the fire department could not burn it down a s a training exercise due to the high levels of lead paint contamination.
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