We’ve come a long way from the days when water was provided only from private wells and people relied on outhouses rather than indoor plumbing.  The mid to late 1800s were a time of rapid development in public water systems.  Maynard started building its public water system in 1889.  As the town grew, more and more water mains were installed.  Many houses were built in the early 1900s.  The first house I lived in, at 5 Maple Court, was built in 1920.  Back when it was built, it had fresh water plumbing, but only an outhouse in the back yard until later on when a bathroom was built onto the back of the building, behind the kitchen.
I say all this, because when more houses were built in town (such as in the “Presidentials” neighborhood), water mains were added beneath the streets to serve them.  By now, it’s 100 years later, and the metal pipes that form the network of water mains underground don’t last forever.  Corrosion, vibration from traffic traveling overhead, shifting soils, minor earthquake tremors, and other factors mean that they must eventually replaced.

The cost of digging up and replacing them all today would be astronomical.  So the best the town can do is plan to upgrade them in stages, according to a Water Master Plan (See ​https://www.townofmaynard-ma.gov/623/Water-Master-Plan ).
In spite of our best efforts, it’s difficult to predict when conditions underground will stress some pipes more than others.  Since water pipes are made up of separate sections, coupled together, it’s often those joints where failure is most likely.  As there are thousands of such joints, and they must be buried deep enough in the ground to prevent freezing in the winter (that is, below the frost line), inspecting them all periodically is just not practical.
As a result, the town has to be both proactive (implement the master plan as best it can) and reactive; that is be ready to repair the unexpected failures when they occur.  And keep enough money in the budget to cover the cost.

We are all fortunate that someone noticed this unexpected flow of water along the street and called the police to report it.  If they hadn’t done that, the damage could have been a lot worse.  Water Department personnel have asked me to remind everyone that if you see anything that might indicate a water or sewer emergency, please call the Police Department right away.  You can call the dispatcher at 978-897-1011 or call 911 if you only have emergency access on your phone.  The police department can receive calls any time of day or night, even when other Town Government Offices, including the Water Department, are closed.  The Police have information readily at hand to contact Water Department workers who can be dispatched to the scene.

Maynard, MA - The School Committee meeting Thursday evening, June 18th, began with four of the five committee members present in the Fowler School Library and the fifth one attending virtually, via Zoom. The first item on the agenda was a time period for public comments.  Committee member Maro Hogan read the rules, including that each person had three minutes to make their comment.

All 16 comments related to the book “Gender Queer,” by Maia Kobabe, and its inclusion in the high school library.  A citizen of Maynard had previously requested that the book be removed from the library, prompting the comments.  All of the commenters spoke in favor of keeping the book available to students in the school. There were no comments from people opposed to having the book available that I’m aware of.

The book is in the form of a “graphic novel,” meaning that the story is told as a series of hand drawn illustrations with the characters’ thoughts or spoken words shown as hand written text within each frame.  There are no photographs.
The story is essentially an autobiography.  In it, the author is very open and direct about their experiences and feelings growing up.  They delve into issues such as, asexuality, gender dysphoria, intersex, and autoandrophilia, among others.
​The book references scientific research into how hormones affect fetal development, leading to the physical development of sex organs, and the development of gender identity, and sexual orientation in the brain.  Slight variations in these processes seem to be what gives rise to some of the variations that people experience after birth, while growing up, and later in life.
Perhaps most importantly, the author details their own feelings of embarrassment, self doubt, and isolation throughout their childhood and teens, similar to what many young people experience as they go through puberty, especially if they find that their lives are taking a different path from most of those around them.

I found the entire story to be honest, engaging, informative, and heart-felt, and am glad to have read it.
Clearly, I have my own bias, in that I experienced many of the same feelings growing up, especially as I often didn’t “fit in” well with most other people my age.  I didn’t begin to ask certain important questions about my gender identity until I was past age 50.  Of course, I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, when questions of gender and sexual orientation were not widely discussed.  In my mid 60s, I wrote my own book about my experiences, entitled “a man wearing a dress."

We live in times of stark differences when it comes to deeply intimate issues.  For some people it’s time to open up more conversations regarding sexuality and gender.  For others, it’s time to hold onto what they see as traditional norms.
​I can understand how someone might be taken aback by one or two of the illustrations in the book.  And yet, I found the story deeply moving and had the sense that it could be extremely valuable for readers in their mid to late teens, as well as for parents and others who seek to understand the challenges facing young people today.
Conversations about sensitive topics are often difficult, and yet to ignore them, or fail to provide enough detail, may leave young people uninformed and thus unprepared to deal with the challenges that may arise in their lives, especially when they reach full adulthood.
​I have heard countless stories from friends of mine who report that, when they were younger, they were not told much at all about puberty, sexuality, or gender identity.  For example, I know of numerous women who, while in their early teens, had started their menstrual cycles without any adult ever mentioning to them what was about to happen.  That just seems so tragic to me!

From what I understand, there has been an effort started by a few people in town to remove this book from the high school library (where it has been in the collection already for some time by now).  News of this effort is what sparked the comments at the school committee meeting Thursday night.
​But the question I want to ask is this:  What impact does an effort to ban a book from a school library have in today’s world?

As for access to this particular book, there are already many options beyond the school library. It can be ordered online, or even in a “reader” version (such as for Kindle, Nook, or the iPad). People can share copies with each other or even buy them to give away to others, if they so choose.  From asking around, I’ve learned that the effort to ban the book has already increased interest in it throughout the town and has increased sales, both locally and from online sources.

One of the people who attended the School Committee meeting and stood to deliver their remarks provided me wth a copy of their remarks.  I’m including it here, below.  Remarks from others at the meeting may be available from School Committee minutes.

This has been a difficult story for me to write.  My commitment here at Town Wide Mall has always been to keep each story as locally focused as possible and avoid partisan politics, especially related to regional or national controversies.
I set this goal for myself because I want everyone in Maynard to read and benefit from what I post here, regardless of what views they might hold regarding politics or public policy elsewhere.
However, as with this story, and a few others, that has proved to be rather difficult.  For example, back in November, the suspension of SNAP benefits during the the federal government shut down definitely had an impact on residents in Maynard, but it was also directly connected to politics on the national level.  I never did a full story on that, as the situation kept changing too fast for me to complete an article and post it, before it became irrelevant.

§ § §

I published a story to introduce this new system, here on this web site, back on May 3rd, entitled, "Got Trash?"  Also, Maynard’s other online news source, The Maynard Voice, ran a story, back on May 15th.  I’m told they will have a follow up story in their next edition, due out on June 15th.

The following Question and Answer series, here below, picks up where I left off in my first article.  I’m planning two more stories on this topic, one with more of a history, overview, and long term view, and the other a more practical one on how to reduce how much trash we generate.  It may seem that we’re all victims of rising costs, but I think there is a lot we can do to help prevent the next “sticker shock.”

Question:  Why is it suddenly so much more expensive?
Answer:  Maynard began the sticker program in 1996.  It was $1.00 per single bag or $2.00 for a barrel full.  Stickers remained at that price until 2022. That’s 25 years without a price increase!  During that time, just with normal inflation, that $2.00 sticker should have increased to $3.65.

Question:  So if costs went up faster than sticker prices, how’d the town pay for it all?
Answer:  The town had to take funds out of the “general fund,” which is government-speak for property taxes, state aid and other miscellaneous funds.  Property taxes are limited by a state law known as “Proposition 2½.”​ That means less is left over for other town needs. This also meant that even people who had private contractors take their trash were paying a portion of their property taxes to help cover everybody else’s trash collection.  And yet, if they put their recycling out for the town to pick up, that cost the town to provide that service (see recycling question, below).  Also, throughout the years, voters in Maynard have established a tradition of paying separately for various services, rather than just take it all out of property taxes.

Question:  What about recycling?  Don’t we earn some income from our recyclables?
Answer:  Unfortunately, not anymore.  The cost of running the program exceeds the value of recyclables that we can sell in the open market. For years, most of the recycled materials in the U.S. (after being sorted out into separate categories) were typically shipped to other countries to be manufactured into new products.  But in 2018, the global market changed dramatically, when many of those countries stopped taking them, so we had to resort to industries here in the U.S., which were not prepared to take the load.  So, although it may seem “free” to put recycling on the curb, the remaining cost of the program had to be subsidized by general tax revenue and sticker fees.

Question:  So does that mean that recycling is not worth it?
Answer:  No, recycling is definitely worth it.  First, the value of recycled materials is likely to rebound over time, especially as raw materials continue to get more expensive in today’s world markets.
Second, the regular trash disposal system is not designed to handle these materials anymore, so the costs of disposing of our trash would skyrocket if we didn’t keep recycling.  But even more importantly, recycling helps reduce our destruction of the natural environment, both from mining new materials, and from burning or dumping our waste.  For all these reasons, putting recyclable items into the trash is a bad idea and is actually now forbidden by state law.  

Question:  If I generate only a small amount of trash, perhaps only one bag per month, why do I now have to pay as much as the people who have a lot more?  That doesn’t seem fair!
Answer:  I agree, it’s not fair.  Unfortunately, the town was stuck in a very difficult position.  When we asked for bids from various trash and recycling companies, only one company, E. L. Harvey, qualified.  The others were too far away to serve Maynard, for one thing.  If we tried to add yet another option, such as once per month, that would reduce revenue for the program, but the overall cost to the town would not be reduced.  The basic problem is, even if they don’t pick up at every address, the trucks still have to drive up and down all the streets in town, every week, to reach the carts that are put out on the curb.  Just having the biweekly option is a stretch.  It’s almost a “gift” to residents, as the cost of collecting is much the same for all, regardless of which option is chosen.
​Note:  See more about this in the Background section, below.

Question: With this flat fee, what’s the incentive for anyone to reduce their amount of trash?
​Answer:  There isn’t a direct financial incentive per household.  But there is definitely a financial incentive for us all!  That’s because if we all work together to reduce the amount of trash we create, that will lower the overall cost to the town and keep rates from rising even faster in the future.  You see, the town pays a certain amount for each ton of trash collected that has to be dumped at the incinerator plant.  The fewer tons, the lower the cost to us.
With the passage of Article 26 at the annual town meeting last month, all revenue and expenses for trash and recycling are now recorded in a separate account, known as an “Enterprise Fund.”  That means that the program no longer depends on funds mingled with the other town budgets.  So if we can manage our costs, that helps reduce rate increases in the future.

Question:  But doesn’t the trash to energy plant earn money from the electricity it generates?
Answer:  Yes, it does.  But the income from electricity generation is still less than the cost of running the plant overall.  Every town that delivers their trash there has to pay per ton of trash they deliver there, to cover the difference.

Question:  Well, at least that gets rid of the trash, right?
Answer:  Well, no. Not everything in our trash burns.  For every 100 tons of trash burned, there can be as much as 30 tons of unburned material that comes out the other end of the plant.  People throw away all kinds of things that don’t burn, including clay cat litter, broken coffee cups, old toilet bowls, and many other items.  And, because not everyone takes their toxic waste to special collections, some toxic stuff ends up in there as well.  (See: https://energyjustice.net/incineration/ash/)
All this “Bottom ash” (as they call it) still has some of this toxic stuff mixed in. Elements such as arsenic, cadmium, or lead, for example, don't burn up in the furnace.

And Maynard’s program guarantees the same rate for a whole year.  I’d be very careful to examine any contract to see how often the company can change rates, whether they provide the carts you’d use (as Maynard will do) or you have to buy or rent them, etc. ​

Question: What can we do about all this before it gets worse?
Answer:  There are a number of things we can do.  One way is to separate all our food waste from everything else and compost it instead. Food waste has a high water content, so it takes more energy to burn it in the furnace.  And it also weighs a lot, so every ton of it that we don’t compost and send to be incinerated instead costs us.

Regarding the folks who currently only put out one bag of trash per month, the town’s Solid Waste and Recycling coordinator sent me this statement, to provide more detail and perspective:
"At this point in time, unfortunately, offering a monthly trash collection choice is not financially sustainable. Our Town gets billed for trash collection at every household each week, even when a household is on a bi-weekly choice plan, for example. Every municipal hauler bills that way, because their drivers have to go down each street anyways, so they are not saving on fuel costs, etc. It is also difficult to find municipal haulers who offer a monthly collection option, as it makes scheduling their drivers extremely difficult, and is not a break-even part of their business models.
​The good news is that Maynard is considered a trail blazer on this front! We are among the first municipalities in MA to offer a bi-weekly trash collection option.
When calling or emailing private haulers, our Solid Waste Management Coordinator was able to find one private (not municipal) hauler who was offering to collect garbage on a monthly basis for approximately $40/month. For that reason, enrolling in the Town’s bi-weekly trash/recycling/yard waste choice may be the most cost-effective option for you, since it costs $15/month. If you choose that, please remember that billing will occur AFTER the first three months of service and will appear as a third line on your quarterly water/sewer bill. Since billing is for three months, the charge on that trash/recycling utility line will appear $45 (3 months x $15/month)."

I don’t have much to say, here, as much of my Q and A, above is already partly my commentary, of sorts.  Over time, in order to improve this situation, we will have to find ways to make significant changes to our high consumption economy, in order to reduce waste overall.
As for me, even when I was relatively young, seeing something like clothes thrown into in a wastebasket just seemed strange to me.  In my family, we always used such things for rags or to cut and sew up into something else.  And just the idea of incinerating food definitely felt wrong to me.  Food waste belongs in the ground where the nutrients can help grow new plants.  This was not just a logical reaction for me, but a visceral one.  It’s as if I could imagine the living things in the soil just yearning to receive the food matter when we were done with it.  For us, food with rot or mold is repulsive, and naturally so.  But to the microbes and insects in the soil, it’s “yum.”
​Even these days, I save all the metal waste that I can (beyond the food and beverage cans that our recycling system can take) and then, when I have enough, I call a man who shows up in his truck and takes it all to the scrap metal yards down in Chelsea.  It just seems right and good to do that.
During World War II, people pitched in and collected all kinds of materials to be reused.  In today’s world, the need is just as critical, even though it’s for an even bigger cause, the preservation and health of the natural world on this planet.  That’s harder to conceive of in practical terms, when compared to saving metal items for a war effort, for example, but I’m fully behind such efforts.
Lastly, I want to take this opportunity to thank the all the volunteers and town employees who have put in literally hundreds of hours of work, extending well over two years, to work diligently to solve Maynard’s trash and recycling problems.  I also want to thank the folks at The Maynard Voice for joining in to help everyone understand the importance of what we’re doing.

End Notes:
• For more about landfill closures, see: https://thebostonweekly.com/massachusetts-faces-growing-recycling-and-waste-management-challenges/
• Technically, what we call “Proposition 2 1/2” is called an “initiative petition” in Massachusetts, but the name was borrowed from a similar vote in California, known as “Proposition 13,” which was big news at the time.See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Massachusetts_Proposition_2½
Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13
• Our trash is taken to the plant known as “WIN Millbury.” See:  https://www.mass.gov/guides/municipal-waste-combustors#-material-separation-plans-