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Southeastern Massachusetts Resource Recovery Facility

Rochester, MassachusettsWaste power stations in the United States

The Southeastern Massachusetts Resource Recovery Facility (commonly known as SEMASS) is a waste-to-energy and recycling facility located in Rochester, Massachusetts. It is currently owned by Covanta Energy. The United States Environmental Protection Agency mandated closure of unlined landfills in the early 1980s-- after which many Cape Cod communities signed agreements to send their municipal waste to SEMASS. Two facilities to transfer trash from trucks to railroad hopper cars, the Upper Cape Regional Transfer Station and the Yarmouth-Barnstable Regional Transfer Station were constructed to consolidate trash receipts and minimize the number of garbage trucks making round trips between their respective towns and SEMASS. The goal was to conserve fuel, lower transportation costs, reduce vehicle exhaust pollution, and mitigate traffic congestion on and near the two bridges spanning the Cape Cod Canal. Massachusetts Coastal Railroad, is the rail service provider for the facility.The towns served by the station had 30-year disposal contracts with SEMASS that expired between 2015 and 2016. By 2013 the per-ton rates paid by the towns were all well below market rates.Six towns, Brewster, Chatham, Eastham, Sandwich, Truro, and Yarmouth, renewed with SEMASS, but a competitor, ABC Disposal Service of New Bedford, signed up seven other towns, Barnstable, Dennis, Harwich, Mashpee, Orleans, Provincetown, and Wellfleet, with a promise to build a new recycling and disposal plant. As of 2016 the plant has not been built, the waste is being sent to landfills and ABC has filed for bankruptcy. As of November 2019 ABC has approached Mashpee looking for a substantial increase in their tipping fees claiming the failure to reach an agreement may force the company out of business. ABC has still not completed the promised waste to brickette facility that they sold many town on.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Southeastern Massachusetts Resource Recovery Facility (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Southeastern Massachusetts Resource Recovery Facility
Wareham Street,

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Wikipedia: Southeastern Massachusetts Resource Recovery FacilityContinue reading on Wikipedia

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Latitude Longitude
N 41.803161111111 ° E -70.789241666667 °
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Wareham Street
02576
Massachusetts, United States
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South Middleborough Historic District
South Middleborough Historic District

The South Middleborough Historic District encompasses the historic village center of South Middleborough, Massachusetts. The village is located about 6.5 miles (10.5 km) south of the town center, at the junction of Wareham and Locust Streets. Wareham Street (designated Massachusetts Route 28), was for many years the primary route to Cape Cod, until the construction in 1966 of Massachusetts Route 24, a divided highway that bypasses the village. Partly because of the highway, the village center has not been significantly altered since that time. The district includes 88 acres (36 ha), with 75 contributing resources. Most of buildings in the district were constructed between the late 18th century and about 1930. It began to develop as a local center of civic and commercial activity in the second half of the 18th century, when a church (no longer extant, now the site of the 1841 Greek Revival Methodist church) was built and the cemetery was laid out. By the early 19th century a cluster of houses had risen in the area. The arrival of the railroad in 1848 spurred additional growth, including the construction of stores such as the c. 1890 South Middleborough Store at 32 Spruce Street, and the rise of lumbering as an industry. In the 1920s the rise of the automobile led to increased traffic on the Wareham road, and the village grew to serve the business of passing travelers. This traffic was considerably reduced by the construction of Route 24, and the village suffered economically.