Housatonic Party in the Park

11:23AM / Monday, May 29, 2023Print Story | Email Story

HOUSATONIC, Mass. — Live music, dance, face painting, food and more will fill Housatonic Village Common on Saturday, June 10, 11 -3 p.m., for "Party in the Park."

The free event is coordinated by the Housatonic Improvement Committee and all are welcome.

Food and snacks are provided by North Plain Farm, SoCo Creamery, Truck Dining Haul and Extra Special Teas. The Great Barrington Fire Department will bring a display fire truck and the Great Barrington Police Department will bring Archer, its comfort dog.

Bowey the Magic Clown will entertain, and the Great Barrington Libraries will host activities. Other local vendors and organizations will provide information about their activities and services, and there will also be a contest to create a Housatonic Village poster.

Live musicians include Soul Prophet, Johnny Blond, The Faithless Few and Jackson Whalan. Berkshire Pulse will present classes in African dance, drumming and swing dance, and BerkCirque will present an aerial circus demonstration.

Event sponsors are Berkshire Food Coop, CT Management Group, and Gabriel Electric. Other sponsors include Berkshire Property Agents, Bradley Architects, Formel Auto Salvage, Friends of the GB Libraries and Housatonic the Beautiful. T Square Design has designed Housatonic-centric merchandise, which will be for sale at the event.

In the event of rain, the event will be held in the Housatonic Community Center.

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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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