The below is excerpted from Jane Kaufman’s article for The Berkshire Eagle on December 1, 2024
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A rusted gate blocks the entrance to this town’s long-closed landfill, but in the future, that gate may open to a world of learning about a forest in a changing climate.
A local group plans to reopen the town’s naturally capped landfill, as well as the 99 acres surrounding it. However, it wouldn’t be as a dump, but as an educational tool.
Since it closed in 1985, not much human activity has taken place at the landfill. The road behind that rusted gate has now grown over in a dense growth of young trees. Part of the forest skirts the edge of the Westfield Brook, feeding into the Westfield River …
Dicken Crane, chair of the Woodlands Partnership of Northwest Massachusetts, praised the level of engagement Lounsbury’s team has brought to planning this project.
“There is a real commitment on the part of the organizers of this community forest project to engage the community right from the start,” he said. “The more people know about this forest, I think the more they’ll care about forests in general.”
