The Environmental Business Council (EBC) of New England, has announced the winners of the annual EBEE Awards. Charter is a part of the incredible team that was awarded the Nicholas Humber Environmental-Energy Award for Outstanding Collaboration. The winning team includes:
- Massachusetts Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM)
- Town of Medfield
- Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)
- Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR)
- Medfield State Hospital Mediation Committee
- State Hospital Environmental Review Committee
- Spectra Energy
- Charles River Watershed Association (CRWA)
- The Trustees of Reservations
- Weston & Sampson
- The Garden Continuum
- The Nicholas Humber Environmental-Energy Award for Outstanding Collaboration sets out to honor a joint-effort project which reflects its namesake’s global environmental values and overall spirit. The Medfield Charles Gate River project, which involved both the private and public sector, was honored with this year’s award for the work which involved extensive remediation of soils, sediment, and groundwater and restoring wetlands along the Charles River at the Former Medfield State Hospital Site.Collaboration on this project has been going on since 2009 as DCAMM worked with Medfield to generate the appropriate plans to fully remediate and restore the former hospital. DCAMM’s Deputy Director, Office Planning, Design and Construction, John O’Donnel, worked tirelessly to develop alternative plans that would provide common ground for both sides. After 22 non-required negotiation and mitigation sessions and 1 full year, an innovative, collaborative plan was achieved which both sides were excited to complete. As Carole Conelision, the DCAMM Commissioner, put it “We started out on opposite sides of the table, and we ended up sitting together and producing a high-quality, creative result”.Today, a previously hazardous metals and asbestos impacted debris field has been remediated and replaced by a picturesque public park along the Charles with a canoe launching dock and public trails nearby. In the words of William Massaro of Medfield’s Negotiation Committee, “It’s a riverfront restoration everyone can be proud of.”
