The good ole days.

Templeton, Massachusetts

The Templeton landfill was ordered closed and capped under state orders in 1996 because it was an unlined landfill. The dump is located on a 12-acre site between Trout and Crow Hill brooks, adjacent to the Birch hill damn flood plain. It is also just behind the regional high school in a Zone II water protection area upstream from town wells. The Templeton Board of Health teamed up with Casella to propose a new, lined landfill to transfer the waste from the old landfill into the new one. The new landfill would take out of town trash with an original expansion to 26 acres. With the original 26 acres unable to hold the old landfill and twenty years of importing waste, residents assumed the town intended to use the clause in the contract that states that the “town will support the taking of land by eminent domain” and that if there is one cell open at the end of twenty years the contract will be renewed. At a special town meeting, the Templeton Board of Health created an enterprise and rewrote a bylaw that restricted outside trash from entering the town. The Board then signed the contract before they were granted the authority by the selectmen. Templeton Citizens Against the Dump (T-CAD) charged that the contract was illegal because it was signed without authority and the use of town land for this purpose was not brought to town meeting for approval. T-CAD started petitions and collected over 1,500 signatures to force a successful recall of all three of the elected board of health members.