Jeremy Doxsee’s excellent Sept. 5 op-ed about the Yard South Project in South Portland (“Yard South project has untold potential for chaos“) left a few things out.

FEMA encourages all cities to have an emergency operations plan. The plan is supposed to be updated and included in zoning changes. Yard South is at the end of a peninsula that also houses Southern Maine Community College, its dormitories and several neighborhoods. But the only exit is Broadway Avenue, which is very busy when SMCC students attend classes. The addition of a shopping center and 1,000 apartments will further stress the only way out in case of a situation that requires evacuation.

An emergency doesn’t have to be a once-in-100-year hurricane. Back in 1996, the largest fire in South Portland’s history at the Portland Welding Co. near Bug Light resulted in an evacuation of Ferry Village and the death of fireman Capt. Robert E. Wallingford.

There are oil tank farms and fuel supply depots in amongst housing in the area. An emergency in one could trigger an evacuation order. The land where Yard South is proposed is the site of a former WWII shipyard and may be full of toxic chemicals used in ship building such as benzene, chromium and mercury. Some former shipyards, like Hunters Point in San Francisco, are EPA Superfund sites.

Yard South will have to truck it away if they disturb the ground, and doubtless that’s why there are few affordable housing units in their plan. Moving toxic waste is expensive. After the developers have built their project and left, and the City Council members have retired, it is we, the taxpayers of South Portland, who will be left to clean up any future messes.

Louise Rocha-McCarthy
South Portland