I-93 interchange dedicated

By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff, 10/10/2000

OBURN - It's not clear whether residents will appreciate their new Interstate 93 interchange more for the convenience it provides or the fact it showcases a local hero.

The James L. McKeown Interchange was dedicated last week, with the wife and two young daughters of the Woburn businessman, philanthropist, and Boys and Girls Club booster, unveiling the sign on a new set of ramps. The interchange will soon carry 15,000 vehicles a day, transportation officials said.

McKeown died four years ago at age 41.

''Jamie believed firmly in integrity - all day, every day,'' said Bill Cummings of Cummings Properties, where McKeown had been a senior executive. ''That's the Jamie we knew.''

Employees of a new Cummings Properties building and other businesses expanding along Commerce Way will save a lot of time by using the new on- and off-ramps to I-93.

Previously, traffic bound for the Woburn Mall or Industrial Park had to negotiate slow-motion rush-hour traffic at the interchange of Route 128 and I-93, and crawl along overburdened Commerce Way to get to work.

''This new interchange is in direct response to the growing needs of Woburn and other communities to the north of Boston,'' said Transportation Secretary Kevin J. Sullivan.

But the state would not have invested almost $15.7 million of non-Big Dig highway dollars in a new set of ramps just for one suburban development, or to memorialize the works of a resident.

The new ramps are part of a much larger project: development of a ''brownfield'' area. These 245 acres formed one of the most polluted sites in the nation, and were on the Environmental Protection Agency's Top 10 Superfund list. They are being reclaimed and put to commercial use.

The centerpiece of the new development is a regional transportation center that will bring together a Massachusetts Highway Department park 'n' ride lot, a Logan Express bus terminal, and the MBTA's soon-to-be-relocated Mishawum commuter-rail station. The transportation center is to open next year.

The McKeown interchange began carrying cars at 5 p.m. Tuesday, following a well-attended ribbon cutting. Adjacent to the ramps is a Target Greatland superstore, soon to open its doors.

''We reused a Top 10 toxic waste site, and now this is a good-news story,'' said state Senator Robert Havern, an Arlington Democrat who also represents Woburn.

It took a creative solution by a private development company in collaboration with the Woburn Redevelopment Authority and the state - as well as some of the companies that polluted the land.

Cindy Brooks, managing director of Greenfield International of Cambridge, which specializes in reclaiming polluted sites, is president of a Greenfield subsidiary that took title to the toxic Woburn land and donated it to the state.

Under a set of complex trust agreements, Monsanto chemical company, now called Solutia, and another former polluter, Stauffer Management Co., spent $74 million capping the site. Large portions of the land were sold to Target and GTE.

With chemicals discarded from pesticide, leather, and munitions factories, it was number five on the US government's list of 1,400 worst-polluted sites.

The site is near the polluted plot made famous in the movie ''A Civil Action.''

Target paid about $11 million for its land, which included $650,000 in back taxes and reimbursments for the cleanup.

The cleanup was enforced by a consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

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