Session Laws

Whereas, The deferred operation of this act would tend to defeat its purpose, which is to immediately provide financial assistance to relieve the fiscal impact of a temporary shutdown at the resource recovery facility in the town of Saugus for the installation of acid gas scrubbers, therefore it is hereby declared to be an emergency law, necessary for the immediate preservation of the public convenience.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

SECTION 1. Section 48A of chapter 584 of the acts of 1987 is hereby amended by striking out the second paragraph and inserting in place thereof the following paragraph:-

Resource recovery facilities and other solid waste incinerators operating prior to January first, nineteen hundred and seventy-seven shall, no later than December thirty-first, nineteen hundred and ninety, operate with acid gas scrubbers or such other technology providing equal or greater protection to the public health and environment, as determined by the department.

SECTION 2. Said chapter 584 is hereby further amended by striking out section 21, as amended by section 55 of chapter 208 of the acts of 1988 and inserting in place thereof the following section:-

Section 21. (a) The department of environmental quality engineering is hereby authorized and directed to expend a sum, not to exceed ninety-four million dollars for the purposes of providing grants and loans to public bodies for the clean up of contaminated water supplies as authorized by subsection (a) of section three of chapter twenty-one H of the General Laws and for grants and loans authorized by subsection (d) of said section three of said chapter twenty-one H.

(b) The secretary of administration and finance is hereby authorized and directed, in furtherance of his responsibilities pursuant to section forty-nine of chapter five hundred and eighty-four of the acts of nineteen hundred and eighty-seven, to make available grants to cities and towns served by the RESCO resource recovery facility in the town of Saugus, for the purpose of mitigating the financial impact on said cities and towns of funding temporary alternative methods of disposal for solid waste customarily processed at the RESCO facility, which waste will become a municipal disposal obligation during the period that the RESCO facility will cease processing operations to install acid gas scrubbers and related equipment to comply with the provisions of section forty-eight A of chapter five hundred and eighty-four of the acts of nineteen hundred and eighty-seven. The authorization to said secretary shall not exceed in the aggregate the sum of six million dollars.