State Calls SA Farm 'Illegal Dumping Ground,' Takes Action

For more than a year, residents living on and around Whitney Street have , pleading with the Board of Selectmen, Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals to combat what they insist is an illegal dumping ground at 429 Whitney St.

Owned by Santo Anza, and called SA Farm, Anza has combatted the town and its residents, maintaining that the site is indeed a working farm, or will be.

But the town, and now the state, are stating it is an illegal dumping ground, and action against Anza and 429 Whitney Street Trust, is being taken.

Recently, the that was issued to Anza on July 15; the board not only denied the appeal, but strengthened the language to demand that Anza remove any landfill that had been delivered to the premises.

Now, the state is charging Anza, too. As reported on NECN, "Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley served owner Santo Anza with this complaint, alleging that he has allowed others, including Haymarket Square in Boston, to dump solid waste on his 429 Whitney St. property."

"We are very happy that we are getting help from the attorney general's  office," Scott Stocklin told Patch when he heard of the update. Stocklin lives on Patrick Drive, near the Whitney Street property. "It has been a slow process but we understand the legwork involved. We have not received much assistance from the town, so we have been on our own until the state got involved. The smell has been awful. We close the windows and can't go outside during periods." 

According to the NECN report, Anza said the smell is natural for any farm, but admitted that his composite facility license had been revoked. “We reduced material being brought in so everything is consumed by the livestock or used for livestock,” Anza says in the NECN report.

The Telegram & Gazette reports that the state seeks as much as $60,000 in penalties if Anza doesn't comply. The AG's office, said the Telegram, filed the complaint on Wednesday with the state's Department of Agriculture and the Department of Environmental Protection. The complainants seek a permanent injunction, requiring Anza's “cessation of the dumping activities and elimination of putrid odors emanating from 429 Whitney St.”