A total of at least fifty (50) Participants submitted oral or written comments to the Board of Health or presented testimony at the hearings.  A brief summary of the comments or testimony of a majority of the Participants follows:

            1.  Dan Charette, Police Chief – “. . .  I believe we’re very, very fortunate in Southbridge that we have not had many more severe accidents . . . But I do believe that it’s imperative that a proper roadway -- the roadway’s too narrow, it goes all the way down to 20 feet in some places, as I said the tight turns, the hills, the rest . . .” (Vol. 2, p. 132)

            2.  Mary Dowling – “As the crow flies, Charlton Street School is approximately 1.3 miles, Trinity Catholic Academy is approximately 1.5 miles, West Street School is approximately 1.9 miles, and Harrington Memorial Hospital, where a new cancer treatment center is being contemplated, is approximately 1.75 miles away . . . Gases and pollutants can travel for miles through the air.  Do we want to expose our elementary schools to such pollutants for hours each and every day? . . . The tricommunity has to live with this landfill long after the 27 years has passed.  And long after Casella has hit the highway . . . We already have evidence that 25 out of 50 trucks were carrying hazardous waste only a few weeks ago in blatant violation of its current permit.  Given the sheer magnitude of what is involved here, hundreds of trucks daily carrying bagged garbage, there is no way to ensure public health, safety or the environment is not at risk.” (Vol. 2, pp. 140-142)

            3.  Russell Beckler – “ . . . I live at 5 Robert Street, which is on the corner of Pleasant . . . Monday morning, March 31st, I was outside and I did a truck count starting at 7 a.m. and ending at approximately 4:30 or so.  There was a total of 136 trucks up and down the road . . . that’s 136 trucks in one day, and I mean, to make that even more would be just unbelievable.” (Vol. 2, pp. 142-144)

            4.  Amy Beckler – “Approximately one truck every two minutes came down the street on Monday, which kind of puts it into perspective . . . The other day I was taking my son to school and there was a tanker truck in front of me carrying I would say the run-off or whatever, the leachate whatever, and it was dripping all the way down the street . . We built a really nice deck outside because we wanted to enjoy our yard . . . But when we sit out there during the day if I’m on the phone with somebody, they can’t even hear me because of the noise.  The dust comes up on the deck, we have to wash it off constantly.  I can’t have my kids playing outside during the day because the dust is so bad and the noise is so bad.  And I just think that it’s unfair to ask the residents, especially on a residential road, to even think of having more trucks come up there.” (Vol. 2, pp. 147-151)

            5.  Kevin Buxton Sr. – “I don’t think there is too much question as far as the MSW that we receive from our own town, we can’t guarantee that’s safe . . . it seems to me that there is more of a risk of 10,000 households doing something wrong than one contractor who knows he’s responsible for the contents of his dumpster . . . Landfilling is an outdated dinosaur.” (Vol. 2, pp. 154-155)

            6.  Donald Croke – “. . . you’re generating four or five times the amount of materials going in there, four or five times the amount of leachate that’s going to be coming out also that you have to deal with.  And there is where the stench is.  What’s not permeating through the soil is coming out in the leachate.” (Vol. 2, pp. 156-157)

            7.  Sherri Hostage – “Are the potential risks worth bringing the landfill to our home?  For every landfill that has failed, for every well that’s been contaminated there are many, many people that said it wouldn’t happen and they were gone when it did . . . Would you be willing to let your children and grandchildren grow up next to a landfill?  Would you be willing to let them drink from a well that had a possibility of being contaminated from runoff from the landfill?” (Vol. 2, pp. 159-160)

            8.  Joan LaCoste – “As a realtor, I tour people that come into the area for Harrington Hospital and many people that are relocating . . . But when I have to represent you to try and sell a piece of property, it’s going to be twice as difficult.  It’s going to be terrible . . . Please, I beg of you, because you’re not going to sell your real estate, I’ll guarantee that.  Your real estate will go down the tube . . .it’s going to be a bad, bad scene.” (Vol. 2, pp. 162-164)

            9.  Irene Burds – “We’re talking about a legacy of pollution, of a pollution in the air, in the earth.  What is this?  What are we doing to our families?  What are we doing to our earth?  What are we doing to our neighborhoods?  This is wrong, it feels wrong.  And I just cannot see that paying such a price could ever be worth it, whatever the sort term costs are.” (Vol. 2, p. 165)  “ . . . in the end this boils down to one question.  That’s it.  It’s black and white.  There is no gray here.  Is it safe or is it not safe?  Do toxins and people go together?  We know they don’t.  Through countless of heart-breaking cases of disease and environmental disaster throughout the world.  So there is nothing to talk about here.” (Vol. 10, p. 1700)

            10.  Dennis Martinek – “I’m sure the people at Love Canal at one point in time thought nothing was going to go wrong with their ideas either, although as you probably know that’s not a thriving community at this point . . . We’re at a time in the country where the rest of the country is going green and we’re seriously considering going brown.  Which makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever . . .  if this is such a great deal for this town why aren’t there competing towns out there saying we really want this landfill?  Normally a sign of a good business plan is when you have other towns vying for that business . . . What do we get when the money runs out, when the land is gone, other than a legacy of a mountain of trash . . . people moving out of the community, and what’s going to make up for that tax revenue? What are you going to do when Casella leaves this town high and dry?  How are we going to make it up then?” (Vol. 2, pp. 167-169)

            11.  Robert Jacques – “I’m the executive vice president of the A & M Tool and Die Company and one of its partners . . . and I can’t bring employees to this town for a multiple of reasons.  This only makes it more difficult because no one wants to come and live in the Town of Southbridge for obvious reasons.  Now, this as far as I’m concerned is one more stab in my back.  So you leave me no other, after 58 years in the Town of Southbridge, no other alternative other than to move my company away.” (Vol. 2, pp. 174-176)

            12.  Lara DeRose – “ . . . for two years from 2004 to 2005 I lived on Pleasant Street, 35 Pleasant Street . . . and one truck after another was going by our house . . . And I opened the windows and I put the screens in and cleaned all of the dust off and got the house all nice and clean when we moved in there, and not more than a month later the dust had all appeared in the windows again and then all over the house . . . And when a child reaches two years old there is a mandatory lead paint test that happens in Massachusetts . . . so we did the lead paint test at Harrington and sure enough my daughter had high lead testing . . . so I tested everything in my house and I tested, you know, the outside wall and everywhere, and sure enough nothing tested positive for lead, except the dust on the window sills.  So talking to more and more people in the building and around the area that I was living, I found that all the children were testing high for lead paint . . . as a teacher I can tell you it causes learning disabilities and everything else.  And so now in my mind to think of all those kids who play on the streets of Pleasant Street, and they do, they play right on the street in Pleasant Street, being exposed to leachate and toxic fumes and everything else going up that road, it turns my stomach . . . I can tell you that when I moved to Sturbridge on McGilpin Road in 2004 immediately the smell of the dump descended on me . . . so finally Anna Smith brought a representative from Casella to my house and they both came in and they sat down and they talked with me and told me that there was nothing they could do.  And so when they tell me that – when Kirsch said last week that Casella deals with smell issues, the way they deal with smell issues is ignoring them.  And it has continued to smell.” (Vol. 2, pp. 177-183)

            13.  Stephanie DiMartino -  “ . . . I look at this town as my home and I want to stay here, I want to raise my children here.  But if the Board of Health decides to go through with this, and approve it, I’m going to be putting my house up for sale and I’m going to be moving somewhere else.  I don’t want my kids exposed to what’s going to happen, the pollution, the noise, the possibility of becoming sick . . . it really worries me that there is a potential risk if this goes through that they might become sick.  And possibly to the point of terminal . . . On the application tonight is said how does Casella affect you.  Short and sweet, it affects the air my children are going to breathe, it affects the water that my children are going to drink.” (Vol. 2, pp. 187-190)

            14.  Bob Audet – “Do we need somebody to come in and potentially ruin our quality of life?  There are no safeguards to what will go into the landfill.  Or for that matter what will fly off trucks or go into our street or our yards.  It could be anything.  It could be hazardous, poisonous, dangerous . . . there is no guarantee . . . And what about the potential dangers after the site is spent.  The only obvious motivation to me is financial.  Again, they do not live here and the potential dangers are not in their back yards . . . These hours of hearings have been a learning experience . . . I’ve learned that to some people the future of our children, the safety of our environment are only second to financial gains . . . To expect us to believe that 400,000 tons of raw garbage will cause no ill effect, I object.  To the disregard for the safety and environmental comfort for the residents of Pleasant Street, I object.” (Vol. 9, pp. 1595-1599)

            15.  Keesha LaTulippe – “It’s not a magic lining, it’s going to break.  Whether it breaks in 30 years or 50 years, it’s going to break.  And there is going to be a lot of damage done to our community if you allow this to expand . . . You don’t sell out the futures of our children and community around us to bail ourselves out of a difficult situation that we’re in right now.  It’s going to break, we’re going to have to be able to clean up a mess at some point in time so please, please think long and hard and I hope that you will not decide to expand the dump.” (Vol. 9, pp. 1599-1601)

            16.  Mary Puracchio – “And in my humble opinion it boils down to money for the town versus good health for the people.  It is true that money would come into the town budget if Casella’s modified plan were to be accepted.  But along with the money would come, number one, approximately 240 round trips of 18-wheelers rolling into town daily, trucking in garbage from all over Massachusetts to be dumped in our landfill.  Four hundred thousand tons a years to be exact.  And also will come, number two, a decrease in property value.  Who would want to buy a house in a garbage town?  No one would want to move here and many residents will want to move out.  Southbridge will become a ghost town if we allow Casella’s modified plan to be thrust upon us.  And also will come, thirdly and most importantly, long range predictable damage to people’s health from the leachate and toxic gases produced at such an expensive landfill . . . I would not want to be responsible for toxic gases exacerbating asthma and other respiratory illnesses, to seize three towns, Southbridge, Charlton and Sturbridge, and hold them in an irreversible, I said irreversible grip, polluting the environs and poisoning the people.  I would not want to look into the eyes of a child stricken with leukemia brought on because of his living near a hazardous landfill and know that I had been responsible for allowing an enormous landfill to be constructed in that locality.” (Vol. 9, pp. 1603-1604)

            17.  Judy Remillard – “There was an informational meeting held in the Edgar McCann room in the Southbridge Town Hall in 2003.  I remember Mr. Schwalbe telling us that if we were unhappy with the changes Casella could buy residents out for ten percent above the appraised value of our homes.  When we asked him what the company would do with all the properties if Casella bought them, he said they would rent them to low-income people.  Since Casella was willing to buy out our homes I took this as an admission that the odor, truck and noise, etc., made this an undesirable and unsafe place to live for any person, low income or not.” (Vol. 9, pp. 1618-1619)

            18.  Dr. Clement E. LaCoste – “We call it a minor modification but I never heard anything minor here . . . These fumes do aggravate problems with your lungs.  And if you have asthma, it will be aggravated and you will have trouble breathing . . . Landfills are dangerous . . . municipal solid waste is dangerous . . . vinyl chloride, benzene, formaldehyde, in small amounts these are still carcinogenic.  They do cause cancer.  Arsenic, of course, is the most dangerous.  These, all these compounds depress your immune system.  What does that do?  It makes you extremely susceptible to infections, any kind of infection.  It’s well known that kids who live near landfills have a 50 percent increased chance of having asthma . . It never ends.  It doesn’t go away.  Once you do this it’s over.  You’ve done it, it’s not reversible.  Cancer and the birth defects are not reversible.” (Vol. 10, pp. 1633-1636)

            19.  Linda Cocalis – “ . . . Section 44718(d), as amended was enacted to further limit construction or establishment of municipal solid waste landfills near small public airports.  In enacting this legislation, Congress expressed concern that MSW site near an airport poses a potential health hazard to aircraft operations because such a waste facility attracts birds.  Statistics support the fact that bird strikes pose a real danger to aircraft.  An estimated 87 percent of the collisions between wildlife and civil aircraft occurred on or near airports when aircraft were below 2,000 feet above the ground  Collisions with wildlife at these altitudes are especially dangerous as aircraft pilots have minimal time to recover from such emergencies . . . AC 150/5200-33 recommends against locating municipal solid waste landfills within five statue miles of an airport . . .” (Vol. 10, pp. 1649-1651)

            20.  Sarah Goodwin – “Being a mechanical engineer myself, I know that designs have a given life span, which can then either be replaced or repaired.  Landfills I know I’ve learned now cannot.  When the liner leaks, it cannot be replaced or repaired.  Furthermore, the leakage of contaminants is expected, it’s an accepted concept in landfill design . . . I pulled from the Mass. DEP several monitoring well reports for the Southbridge landfill.  These reports, some of them, tentatively showed -- they showed tentatively identified compounds, volatile organics compounds . . . These are indicators of what’s to come and since there is currently very little MSW in this landfill, imagine multiplying this risk 16-fold.  How can we expand upon and stress a continuously eroding system that will cause irreversible damage to our drinking water and cause health issues for current and future generations.  Yes, the landfill is already there, but increasing the MSW will prove to be disastrous.” (Vol. 10, pp. 1656-1658)

            21.  Lindsay Goodwin – “There is no such thing as a safe landfill.  It is a ticking timebomb.  An outdated technology that will have to be replaced by newer more sustainable methods . . . I am particularly concerned about this since my six-month-old baby was born with a minor birth defect that can be associated with environmental toxicity.  I am very concerned about other babies and women carrying out pregnancies near this landfill.  Especially if MSW is increased . . .this is a decision that will change this town and this region forever.  It may seem like a minor site assignment modification but it is not.  It is a legacy to this community . . .Casella has tried to improve conditions here, but has not yet succeeded with the situation at the landfill now.  Just during this hearing process there have been major issues with the flare, its reliability and the method of reporting and responding outages . . . Please don’t grant them more responsibility.  We will end up breathing in their mistakes while they work out the kinks.” (Vol. 10, pp. 1660-1663)

            22.  John F. Mahan – “But what I ask you is in the back of your minds if you see that cancer is increasing around the dumps, in the back of your mind are you going to say, well, maybe if we didn’t allow this minor site modification maybe these people wouldn’t have come down with certain forms of cancer, or some of the asthmas.  Or if you read in the newspaper that maybe a Casella truck God forbid hits a child, would you think to yourself, well, maybe if that truck wasn’t on the road at that specific time maybe that child wouldn’t have been hit?  I know if I was on the board in the back of my mind I would constantly be reviewing things and saying what if.” (Vol. 10, p. 1665)

            23.  Paula Kenda – “. . .  in my heart of hearts my one question is can you guarantee me a hundred percent that no one will get sick?  And I think you know the answer as well as I . . . that this dump will not be good for any of us.” (Vol. 10, p. 1667)

            24.  David Touloumtzis and Holly Klimczak – “ . . . we would like to urge the Board of Health to consider the health of the community using the broadest possible definition of both health and community.  Health goes beyond asthma and emphysema rates.  Those are serious concerns that should absolutely be part of this decision, but there is also the health of our civic pride to consider.  How will that survive under the town’s new role as the dumping ground for urban excess? . . . The future of our towns, the future of our children, and the future of the land we live on is at stake here.  The question before you can’t be any more plain:  are we willing to stake this future against the hope that nothing will ever go wrong?” (Vol. 10, pp. 1671-1672)

            25.  Helen Lenti – “Do we want Southbridge to be the subject of the next big hit movie about the demise of a town that couldn’t think of any other way to boost the economy other than allowing their town to be poisoned because it needed money? . . . if we want to live by example and maintain the respect and the trust of our children, we should do everything in our power to keep our planet and our small portion of it, Southbridge, free of the pollutants the landfill will bring with or without expansion.” (Vol. 10, pp. 1675-1676)

            26. Steve Lazo – “ . . . I’m going to live here the rest of my life but I don’t want to die prematurely from cancer or some other hazardous thing that comes out of that landfill.  I live down at the end of town where the leachate is supposedly going to go.  I don’t want to breathe that.  I don’t want my kids to breathe it, I don’t want my father to breathe it, I don’t want any of my neighbors to breathe it . . . This is a 29-year thing and beyond we’re going to be stuck with this thing.  It’s a short-term fix and I don’t believe in short-term fixes.” (Vol. 10, pp. 1680-1681)

            27.  John Malloy – “At the corner of the intersection of River Street and Pleasant Street, there is a building there that every morning children, little ones, medium size ones, are brought by school buses to that building . . Sit down there in your car some one of these days and watch the trucks blow through that intersection.  I mean, they fly.  I clocked one -- I have clocked -- I bought a radar gun and coming down the hill those trucks I’ve clocked them as high as 65 miles an hour going by my house . . . That’s a dangerous situation.  You wouldn’t want one of those trucks to run through 15 kids crossing the street.  And it’s going to happen if they keep doing it.” (Vol. 10, pp. 1681-1685)

            28.  Chris DeRose – “The dump as it is, with minimal residential waste, stinks.  I live about a mile away and I smell whatever it is emanating from the dump as little as a month ago when the flare went out . . . the smell will get worse when we have 405,000 tons more a year of residential waste rotting away up there at the top of the hill.  Casella tells us not to worry about it but I know they can’t deal with it.  And I have zero confidence they will be able to deal with it in the future . . . I grew up less than a mile away from a dump in Greenfield, Massachusetts and I’m currently a Type I diabetic . . . when I was diagnosed I was an otherwise healthy young man about to embark on a career as an officer in the United States Coast Guard . . . my own mother suffers from asthma.  In fact, she almost died from it . . . Could my family’s proximity to a dump have been a contributing factor to my father’s bladder cancer in 2002 or his current diagnosis of kidney cancer? . . .  I can’t help but think how my life, my mother’s life, my father’s life would have been if we had not lived so close to a dump . . . Casella may promise the Town of Southbridge a few dollars to become the dumping ground of Massachusetts but will it be enough to compensate the families who are forced to deal with the chronic health issues that will certainly occur at higher than normal rates?  No, these families will not see a dime of it and certainly no amount of money can compensate for the loss of a loved one.  The Southbridge Board of Health literally has the opportunity to save lives here.” (Vol. 10, pp. 1686-1690)

            29.  Melissa Renaud – “ . . . there is a Montessori school located on 370 Worcester Street, or often referred to as 169 . . . It will be difficult for the teachers to educate them on the area of recycling and caring for their environment and their community when we have this going into Southbridge.” (Vol. 10, pp. 1691-1692)

            30.  Mary Afable – “All of the diseases linked with landfills kill.  The number of people who will be placed at risk is very high . . . So far we haven’t been given even a shred of evidence that the current landfill is not a danger . . . As for the future, when millions of tons of MSW will be brought into this area, we have only the assurances of Casella’s employees that there is nothing to worry about . . .  And the potential for danger is enormous.” (Vol. 10, pp. 1698-1699)

            31.  Yvonna Burds (12 years old) – “. . . when I first heard about the landfill from my mom, I though there is no way this could go through.  If it’s so life threatening and bad, bad for the health of all the people and the health of the animals that live near it, how can people let it go through.  When Casella is gone in a few years he’s going to leave us with this thing, all this poison and all this bad stuff that’s in it.  And it’s just so bad I don’t even have words for it.  I just don’t get it.” (Vol. 10, p. 1702)

            32.  Jennifer Erickson – “During 2003 there was an informational meeting at the Southbridge Town Hall in the Edgar McCann room . . . as I was leaving Judy Remillard and Pat Brousseau were talking to Mr. Schwalbe, a representative from Casella.  Pat waved me over.  Mr. Schwalbe explained that if we were unhappy with the changes in our area, Casella could buy us out for the fair market value of our homes . . . He told me they would be used for low-income housing just as he had told Pat Brousseau at the meeting.  I was disturbed by that idea that while our homes were no longer fit for my family they would be safe enough for low-income families.  I understood Casella’s willingness to purchase our property as an admission that because of the environmental impact, traffic and noise my home would no longer be a safe and healthy place for my family to live.” (Vol. 10, pp. 1709-1711)

            33.  Joyce Smith – “I’ve been living here [28 Pleasant Street, apartment 2] for three years now.  Can’t open my windows on a nice day to get fresh air.  Instead you get lots of dust and diesel fuel smell.  These trucks are so loud and they shake the building when they go by.  I have MS and asthma and this is affecting my health.  I am allergic to dust which I am using my spray more than I did before plus a nebulizer.” (Vol. 10, p. 1711)

            34.  Stanley Choinski – “ . . . the two swamps that button the landfill.  There was pollywogs there in the early spring for years that put you to sleep.  And there is no frogs or pollywogs at either one of those swamps . . . And I never had asthma until three, four years ago and I don’t know what’s happening.  And I used the mushrooms as a matter of fact up until last year in that area of the landfill, and I would come out of there with two Big Bunny shopping bags full of mushrooms.  In the last three or four years there is nothing there.  A handful at most.  The only thing you see in those woods are paper and plastic flying around the trees and around all the land there.  And I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s certainly an environmental issue.” (Vol. 11, pp. 1800-1081)

            35.  Kyrill Schabert and Susan Spinney – “Casella Waste System’s expansion of the Hardwick Landfill in 2003 to accept 300-400 tons per day of solid waste immediately degraded the quality of life in the area.  The specific consequences at our house, located 1 mile upgradient from the site were as follows: . . . a large numbers of Norway rats . . . the day-long beeping of compactor backup alarms, high-revving diesel engines, and “jake-breaking” trash trucks ruined the normally quiet atmosphere.  At times, there noises were punctuated with shotgun blasts, an attempt to repel seagulls from the trash mound . . . After a year, hydrogen sulfide gas and other odorless toxic volatiles (as verified in air samples) fouled our air.  This contamination coincided with some residents, including us, developing headaches, watery eyes, and skin rashes.  In 2006, these factors convinced us to sell our house and move out of state” (Letter from Kyrill Schabert and Susan Spinney to the Southbridge Board of Health Members dated May 16, 2008)

            36.  Lynn Pledger – “The dangers posed by landfill gas are not limited to the distant future after the cap has deteriorated.  The public will be exposed to these gases during the active operating phase as well . . . estimates independent of the waste industry are that only 40 to 50% of the gas is collected during the active operating phase – the remaining 50-60% escapes directly from the pile.  The nobel Prize-winning Fourth Assessment Report says that the average “lifetime” gas release from landfills could be as much as 80% . . . MSW is far more dangerous than C&D, for both the surrounding population and also for the environment.  MSW landfills are the largest man-made source of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide . . . By accepting regional MSW you are forfeiting virtually all control over what goes into your landfill and what comes out in terms of gases and leachate.” (Letter from Lynn Pledger to the Southbridge Board of Health dated May 19, 2008)

            37.  Lon Weston – “. . . I’m concerned about other communities having a similar experience to the relationship Casella Waste Systems (Casella) has developed since 1994, when North Country Environmental Services a private landfill was purchased by them in Bethlehem NH  . . . My main worry about Casella’s landfill is that the environmental impact is affecting the health and welfare of our community.  The amount of leachate flowing between the breached primary landfill liners into the secondary liner system has exceeded 100 gallons per acre per day.  Volatile organic compounds have been detected in many of the test wells around the facility, which would indicate a possible secondary liner failure causing leachate to drain into the groundwater.  There have been a multitude of complaints about odor strong enough to gag neighbors that live up to one half of a mile away from Casella’s landfill.  The landfill odors can often be detected in the center of Town over two miles from the dumpsite.  The constant seagull population feeding on the waste is also a health issue.  According to the EPA, landfills cause an increase risk of certain organ cancers.  I suspect that Casella’s landfill may be a factor that caused the cancer fatality rate in Bethlehem to be fifty percent higher than the State average.” (Letter from Lon Weston to the Chairman of the Southbridge Board of Health dated May 12, 2008)

            38.  Don and Pat Kaake – “The town we live in, Angelica, New York, is the unfortunate host of a Casella MSW landfill (Hyland landfill).  Hyland accepts waste from New York City, Rhode Island and other east coast states, as well as a variety of ‘non hazardous industrial waste’ and C&D material . . .Videos illustrating the constant problem of dust, litter and tracked-out waste emanating from Hyalnd, as well as the arrogant attitude of the Casella personnel when approached about the waste deposited on the roads by trucks exiting the landfill are presently on YouTube.com . . . What cannot be captured in a video is the odor associated with this landfill, which has become an ever increasing irritant to residents and visitors, and has been reported from as far as 5 miles away.  People smell it on the roads, in the village, in houses, on hills and in the valley.  The tracked out waste stinks also.  Some residents state that the smells make them sick to their stomach, some complain of headaches, burning eyes and throats . . . We are also aware from our research of DEC documents that Hyland has received numerous notices of violation for not confining waste and litter, for multiple leachate breakouts and for accepting unauthorized waste (asbestos).  Furthermore, an inspection report in 2004 noted that Methylene Chloride was detected in secondary leachate . . . Our laypersons’ observation is that making deals with Casella puts your people at risk and should be avoided.” (Letter from Don and Pat Kaake to the Southbridge Board of Health dated May 15, 2008)