Patrick Announces Broadband Highway Partnership

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NORTHAMPTON, Mass. — Interstate 91 will literally become the backbone of broadband expansion efforts in Western Mass. through a partnership between the Massachusetts Broadband Institute and the state Highway Department.

Gov. Deval Patrick on Tuesday announced the partnership that, with the investment of $4.3 million in state bonds, will complete a MassHighway fiber-optic conduit along a 4.56-mile section of I-91 at the Vermont border. That will turn the road into a true high-speed information highway running more than 50 miles from Connecticut to Vermont.

Completing the last five miles will enable collaboration across state borders in a variety of areas, including public safety, education, e-health and access to Internet, say administration officials.

"We are determined to empower all students and businesses with the tools they need to succeed," said Patrick, in a statement. "By leveraging an existing road project to bring broadband access to Western Massachusetts, we are positioning the commonwealth to compete for federal stimulus grants and investing wisely in our future."

A measure passed last year dedicted $40 million to bringing broadband access to underserved and unserved regions in the state. Most of those areas are in Western Mass., including a large chunk of the Berkshires. The legislation created the Massachusetts Broadband Institute to facilitate broadband initiatives.

Two of the six 1.25-inch fiber-optic lines will be used by MassHighway for its Intelligent Traffic System. The other four conduits, reserved for economic development and the build-out of broadband networks in Western Mass., will be leased by the MBI, which will own the fiber placed in one of the conduits and lease the other three for future development.

The $30.7 million Intelligent Traffic System is expected to be completed in 2010. Much of the funding for it and additional conduits is the result of efforts at the federal level by U.S. Rep. John W. Olver, D-Amherst, who attended the announcement at the MassHighway District 2 office.


"I am enormously grateful for Governor Deval Patrick's efforts to bring the Massachusetts Broadband Institute and the Executive Office of Transportation together to partner on this important project," said Olver in a statement. "It is my strong belief that the installation of telecommunications infrastructure should be considered anytime the ground is opened for a state road construction project."

By providing a critical infrastructure component to the future Western Massachusetts broadband ring, the MBI-EOT partnership is expected to greatly enhance the state's grant application for broadband funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

While it is typical for highway broadband projects to result in long-haul networks that can only be accessed every 40 or 50 miles by broadband carriers and providers, the four economic development conduits along I-91 will sweep out to 33 shared resource nodes where providers can access the cable over the course of 55 miles. Once populated with fiber, the new economic development conduit and 33 access nodes — each less than two miles apart — will enable carriers and providers to flexibly and quickly deploy a wide variety of network designs that can reach citizens and businesses.

"Improvements to our underserved areas here in Western Massachusetts are certainly welcome and necessary," said state Rep. William "Smitty" Pignatelli. "Better access to the Internet is an issue very important to my constituents and I am very excited about this project."

The MBI portion of the project is already benefitting from MassHighway's progress to date: rights of way and approval from conservation commission are secured and engineering is 70 percent complete, crews and equipment are mobilized and construction is currently under way.

To learn more about this and other economic recovery efforts, go to www.mass.gov/recovery.
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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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