image description — Volunteers begin restoration work at a single-family home on Grove Street in Great Barrington for Central Berkshire Habitat for Humanity.

Central Berkshire Habitat Begins Work on Great Barrington Home

01:36PM / Monday, April 11, 2022Print Story | Email Story

The house at 40 Grove St. was sold to Habitat by the town and its Affordable Housing Trust to create an affordable housing opportunity for a local family.

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — Central Berkshire Habitat for Humanity is working on a newly purchased property located at 40 Grove St.

This late 1800s home is being renovated as the first step to Habitat providing affordable homeownership in South County. The town of Great Barrington and its Affordable Housing Trust chose to sell this three-bedroom home to Habitat as part of their ongoing efforts to keep the area affordable for those hard-working families that work in the area.

After renovations, this home will be made available for sale using a lottery system later this year according to the state Department of Housing and Community Development standards.

The lottery system gives all eligible applicants an equal chance of purchasing the home. Habitat will have trained volunteers to help people interested in purchasing this home available throughout the process.

With rental costs rising, opportunities like this one can give people a chance to own a home and build wealth for their families while having an affordable payment.

Habitat can only offer homes at an affordable price with the help of volunteers and contractors, so the call for those interested in helping out has begun.

Habitat's goal is to bring people together to build homes, communities and hope, and to do that it needs to develop a core group of "Habitat Champions" who will be able to shape the work the organization does in South County. Habitat welcomes anyone wishing to join its team, whether the are skilled or just want to learn and be a part of building something bigger than themselves.

In March, Habitat held an open house for volunteers at the Grove Street house as a first step to getting to know the neighbors and give those interested an idea Habitat is and does. In the past few weeks, volunteers have helped to shore up the building for safety, clean out the house's contents, and remove drywall. In the coming month, the foundation will need to be stabilized so that volunteer crews can begin the renovation work needed.

This project is just the first of many projects planned in Great Barrington and Housatonic. In addition to this home renovation, Habitat is working with the Affordable Housing Trust to build up to 20 affordable homes on a piece of land on North Plain Road in Housatonic.

"We believe that everyone should have a decent place to call home. Together, we achieve that vision, when we all come together sharing our traditions and customs to build a better community," said Habitat officials.

Check out the volunteer page at BerkshireHabitat.org or call 413-442-3181 to get involved.

Tags: habitat for humanity,

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Lee Wants Bioremediation in Housatonic River Vernal Pool Study

05:24AM / Thursday, September 03, 2026

LEE, Mass. — The town has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and General Electric to include PCB bioremediation in its vernal pool study on the Housatonic River.

Lee officials are urging the EPA to require GE to add a bioremediation treatment arm to the vernal-pool study or provide the public with a clear explanation for why such testing is being excluded.

"This is exactly the kind of question EPA and GE should be asking before final remedy decisions are locked in," Select Board Chair Bob Jones said in a statement released to the press. "The town is not asking to slow the cleanup. We are asking EPA and GE to make the cleanup smarter, less destructive, and more protective over the long term."

An open house was held in Pittsfield earlier this summer for the Vernal Pool Pilot Study on Reach 5A of the Housatonic River, a five-mile stretch between the river's confluence and Lenox border.

EPA has required GE to conduct a Vernal Pool Pilot Study as part of the Housatonic River Rest of River remediation, comparing excavation and restoration with activated-carbon-based treatments, including a product called SediMite and powdered activated carbon, the town said.

Ten vernal pools will be cleaned of polychlorinated biphenyls in total, five with excavation and five with active carbon, and seven additional vernal pools will be monitored as controls. Construction will be complete around October, but the pools will be left to their natural processes and monitored with surveys and sampling for three years.

The Lee PCB Advisory Committee wrote a letter calling for the 21st-century approach it said could reduce long-term toxicity, avoid unnecessary destruction of sensitive habitats, and improve the effectiveness of the cleanup.

It states that Lee supports the study's purpose and agrees that EPA and GE must understand how cleanup activities affect sensitive vernal-pool ecosystems.

"The current pilot includes 10 treatment pools and seven control pools, while local officials understand that roughly 100 vernal pools may occur in the broader remediation corridor," the Aug. 27 letter reads.

"That makes the pilot study consequential: the methods tested now could shape how many sensitive wetlands are excavated, reconstructed, treated, or left with PCBs managed in place."

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