Environmental consultants Haley and Aldrich provided an overview of the sampling plans for the woodland area of the Case Estates last week at as part of transfer of ownership of the property from Harvard University to the town of Weston.
The work is scheduled to begin in 20 days after a comment period, where objections can be raised by the public. An overview of the sampling plan has been put in public repositories such as the to give people time to review the plan.
“We would hope that you would not want to delay the sampling program any longer than necessary,” said a Haley and Aldrich representative. The 20-day period ends April 5.
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In the 2,200 series of tests which have been completed already, 21 locations were sampled at 0 to 1 and 1 to 3 feet below ground. There were some results with arsenic and lead, said Haley and Aldrich geologist Deborah Gevalt.
She said there were "quite a few" spots where the arsenic and lead levels were higher than the residential standards. However, she said that aerial photography showed that there is no indication that there was agricultural activity in the woodlands similar to agricultural activity found elsewhere on the Case Estates.
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Gevalt said this area is different from the rest of the Case Estates and it calls for a different type of assessment methodology, which meant doing a large scale screening exercise of the woodlands area.
Gevalt said there may be a relation to prior use of lead arsenic pesticides to combat gypsy moth infestation that was done town-wide around the end of the 19th century. The consultants intend to do 4 sampling sites per acre on a 23 to 25 acre area of land.
As in the past, lead and arsenic will be sampled for at 0 to 1 and 1 to 3 feet at 106 locations. For each grid, one location will be selected to test for pesticides although Gevalt said that they do not expect to find any due to the lack of any evidence of agricultural activity in the past.
The actual implementation of the sampling plan depends on the weather. Gevalt said they planned work by hand but that it would also be expedient to take a rig into the woods to give them a little extra muscle.
