Wayland landfill committee trims reuse list, plans Acton and Neponset site visits

WAYLAND -- June 5, 2023, Wayland's Route 20 South Landfill Visioning Committee narrowed its reuse menu and lined up two site visits. Meeting Monday for the first time since January 2022, the seven-member panel reviewed a March 2 Weston & Sampson letter and heard from DPW Director Tom Holder that MassDEP has cleared the town to begin $150,000 in tree cutting and stump grinding on the roughly 17-acre site this fall. Chair Tom Fay walked members through 17 reuse concepts floated to the state last August; the committee dropped affordable housing and school bus parking but kept 14 ideas in play, including ball fields, an amphitheater, a solar canopy over parking, a leaching field and a rail-trail link. Member Brad Yeoman resisted hiring a roughly $10,000 consultant before the group finishes its own work, saying the committee should hand the Select Board "three, four, five ideas." Members will tour Nara Park in Acton and the Neponset River Greenway before reconvening.