Plans for 2d salt pile opposed
Many want sheds to cover mounds

By Katheleen Conti, Globe Staff | April 5, 2007

Several Chelsea residents said they would rather keep the oil storage tanks in the former Coastal Oil site on Chelsea Creek than have Eastern Minerals Inc. tear them down to store 100,000 more tons of salt in their place.

In a sometimes contentious Planning Board meeting last week, about 40 residents packed the Senior Center meeting room to tell Eastern Minerals representatives to cover up the existing salt pile with a permanent shed and to commit to build another shed for the additional 100,000 tons of salt the company wants to put on the site of the former Coastal Oil terminal, which is adjacent to the Eastern Minerals property.

Lawyers for Eastern Minerals told attendees that Chelsea residents can have $500,000 to convert nearby Highland Park into a soccer field, for new landscaping on Marginal Street, and for 31,000 to 56,000 square feet of open space and waterfront accessibility on the proposed expansion site.

But they can't have a shed, company representatives insisted. "If we have to build a shed," said Robert McDonnell, one of the lawyers representing Eastern Minerals, "we're not going to build this project."

Although the state Department of Environmental Protection took enforcement action against the company in the past for not conforming to a state law requiring that snow-removal chemicals stored within 200 yards of a river or estuary be kept in a solid-frame shed, Eastern officials said the law doesn't apply to them.

William J. Squires III, another Eastern Minerals lawyer, said that law's purpose is to protect the state's drinking water.

"We are in a saltwater industrial port," he said. "It doesn't apply. We're going to lobby the Legislature to change it."

Squires added that it would be impossible for Eastern to operate its business with sheds, because the salt is dumped on the site from above by cranes that scoop salt from ships and swing around to deposit it on the site.

But lifelong Chelsea resident David Prusky said the company doesn't get it.

"If you've got a law, you obey the law until it's changed," Prusky said. "You still don't get it. The public perception is that this is an eyesore. If you don't change the perception, it's no good."

Board member Dominic Pegnato told Eastern Minerals representatives that they are spending "more money fighting it than it would have cost you for the shed."

"It's something that the city has wanted forever and the state wants it, and because you don't want it, you'd rather change the law," Pegnato said.

The Planning Board, which has no permit-granting authority, can make recommendations to the Zoning Board of Appeals, which has the authority. The Planning Board voted, 5 to 1, to recommend that the Board of Appeals deny Eastern Minerals the necessary special permit. The Board of Appeals is scheduled to meet on the matter Tuesday. The Planning Board is scheduled to continue its discussion on the site planning at its next meeting, on April 24.

Company officials applied for a special permit with the city under the name Rock Chapel Marine LLC, the new name for the former Coastal Oil property, seeking to change the existing nonconforming zoning use there (marine petroleum terminal) to a "less detrimental" nonconforming use (dry-bulk marine cargo-handling with public waterfront event space ), according to their application.

Eastern Minerals, which is owned by the Mahoney family and has operated for 50 years, stores up to 200,000 tons of salt at its 37 Marginal St. location. In 2005, the company purchased the 4.7-acre Coastal Oil site at 99 Marginal St. for the purpose of storing up to 100,000 more tons of salt.

Squires said that Department of Environmental Protection representatives told company officials that they would be supportive of the public recreation space in a working waterfront if the new site is zoned for the same use as the current salt pile site. Local approval would strengthen the company's application with the department for a Chapter 91 waterways license, under the state law on waterfront development.

"If we can't get a Chapter 91 license, we won't go forward with this project," McDonnell said.

Additionally, because the proposed event space would sit on Massachusetts Water Resources Authority property, it would need license approval from the MWRA, Squires said.

Squires told the board that replacing the oil tanks with road salt would be a less detrimental use, because it would be seasonal, as opposed to a year-round oil operation; it would yield less traffic; air emissions would be reduced because of fewer truck trips and elimination of petroleum odors; and there will be drainage improvements.

If the company is unable to use 99 Marginal St. as additional salt storage, the only other allowable uses, Squires said, are, "seafood processing, which smells and is not economical," and reactivation of the oil tanks.

But Planning Board chairman Michael Albano, who said at the start of the meeting that it's no secret that he opposes the Eastern Minerals plans, told company officials they are bullying the city into accepting their proposal.

"A tank farm is really awful and terrible, but I find myself choosing the lesser of two evils," Albano said. "I'm inclined to keep the existing use. You're saying, 'Do this for us; otherwise we'll leave the tanks there.' That sounds like an empty threat. I don't want to be bullied into accepting a salt pile."

To counter the statement that the oil storage tanks can be reactivated, Eugene Benson -- a lawyer with the organization Alternatives for Community & Environment, representing the local nonprofit group Chelsea Collaborative -- quoted a Chelsea zoning ordinance that states that a nonconforming use or structure that has been abandoned or unused for at least two years no longer has protected status.

According to the regional office of the US Environmental Protection Agency, Coastal Oil representatives notified EPA officials in 2004 that the facility was inactive and that no petroleum products had been stored there since 2003.

Resident Scott Kelley said that aside from the shed, Eastern Minerals cannot be accused of being inflexible with the community. Through a cultural arts grant, Kelley said, he got access to photograph the working waterfront and hopes there will soon be public access.

"If the company leaves the tanks, there would be no access at all," Kelley said. "That's not good."

Katheleen Conti can be reached at kconti@globe.com.