Green Acton Recommendations for Select Board 2023 Annual Goal Setting

At the Green Acton meeting of May 9, 2023, Green Acton directors (and assembled members) agreed to draft and send a statement supporting two goals for the Select Board annual goal-setting process: (1) Understanding PFAS Pathways and Reducing Exposure Risks and (2) Creating Land/Tree Clearing Limits. What follows is the recommendations memo that was sent to the Select Board:

Read more: Green Acton Recommendations for Select Board 2023 Annual Goal Setting

Green Acton’s Recommendations for Acton Select Board Annual Goal Setting 2023

GOAL #1: Understanding PFAS Pathways and Reducing Exposure Risks
Green Acton urges the Select Board to make one of its annual goals a program of actions to understand better, and then minimize, Acton residents’ exposures to PFAS compounds. Such actions might take multiple forms; a list of potential strategies can be found in Appendix 1, below.

APPENDIX 1
Green Acton urges the comprehensive address of PFAS in the community because residents are exposed to these “forever” chemicals through multiple pathways, including via consumer products, industrial uses, and drinking water, among others. We ask that the Select Board launch a program to understand, and reduce, Acton residents’ exposures to these toxic compounds.

Potential strategies could include:
• designate a staff member as the Town’s point person on PFAS, in order to coordinate a whole-of-government approach to PFAS mitigation, and to act as a liaison with the Acton Water District and its parallel efforts
• conduct research on the PFAS content of consumable/disposable products (e.g., cleaning supplies, food packaging and storage supplies) purchased by the municipality, and substitute PFAS-free items where possible; a parallel effort for the ABRSD would be an excellent addition
• educate the public about the PFAS contamination of consumer products and ways to minimize their exposure to PFAS across the lifestyle
• coordinate regular sampling of PFAS in the influent water (at the municipal sewage treatment plant) with the Acton Water District’s PFAS sampling of its finished water, in order to understand the magnitude of PFAS exposures due to pathways other than drinking water  
• add PFAS sampling to the ongoing annual program of monitoring ground- and surface water around the closed municipal landfill at the Transfer Station
• provide technical support (assistance in collecting samples, finding a lab, and interpreting data) to property owners with private wells who want to know the PFAS content of their well water (NB: there is a bill on Beacon Hill related to this)
• review the Town’s Groundwater Protection bylaw, and consider whether there are practical ways to strengthen the suite of activities prohibited in GWP Zones 1 and 2 so as to prevent future discharges of PFAS-laden materials within those zones

_________

GOAL #2: Creating Land/Tree Clearing Limits
Green Acton urges the Select Board to make one of its annual goals the adoption of formal methods to limit land and tree clearing for new construction. More context and a specific method are discussed in Appendix 2, below.

APPENDIX 2
The community’s wish to protect land and trees was codified in the town’s 2020 Master Plan, which calls for Acton to “maximize open space and minimize developed land,” in the Acton Climate Emergency Declaration, which calls for the town to “protect trees, forests, and other open space,” and in a 2022 Town Meeting Warrant Article (a non-binding Citizen Petition) directing “the Select Board [to] bring land/tree clearing limits bylaw(s) to Town Meeting for Town Meeting to vote on.” 

The increased urgency to protect land and trees arises from current understanding of the multiple critical roles trees and greenspace play: sequestering carbon, providing habitat and food for biodiverse organismic communities, filtering toxins from the air, mitigating erosion and flooding, providing important shade and cooling, and supporting human mental health.

Thus, Green Acton urges the Select Board to establish land and tree clearing limits among its goals for the coming year, and to consider creation of a bylaw to achieve such protection. Achievement of this goal means that Acton would join the family of Massachusetts municipalities and regions that have taken such action (e.g., Cape Cod Commission’s Land Clearing Limits, Ashland’s Land Clearing Limits Delay Bylaw, Cambridge’s bylaw protecting all trees of a certain size, Concord’s Tree Yard Zoning Bylaw, and now, Boxborough’s Tree Preservation Bylaw).