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Aclarity
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that the number-one cause of pollution is analytical equipment. What that means is, if we can’t measure something, we don’t know it’s there. Our measure- ment technologies are equivalent to a blade of grass in Central Park. It’s that fine; we can find so many things, and we’re finding adverse health outcomes from these compounds.
“The goal is not just removing them, but being able to destroy them to very low levels,” he went on. “We can destroy things down to the limits of detec- tion that we have now, and there’s no scientific reason to think that we can’t go even lower. It’s just a matter of how much money it’s going to cost and how much electricity it’s going to use. But the science is there.”
He’s excited about the flexibility and adaptability of Aclarity’s process.
“While we are focused on PFAS now, there’s a whole market out there that we can potentially deal with. Also, in things like landfills, because we can treat multiple contaminants at the same time, that just makes us more cost-effective. So rather than have technology A for this compound, technology B for
that, we can treat both of those at the same time. So, hopefully, we can be not just a solution, but a cost- effective and the go-to solution.”
“Listen to the public. This is one of the few environmental issues where it’s not just caught up in the science; the public is aware and want things done.”
After all, Schneider said, until PFAS are out of the manufacturing stream and the environment — and that day seems a ways off, to say the least — there’s going to be a need for technologies like Aclarity. “But there’s always going to be something else. The beauty our technology is that it works for so many different things.”
The key to advancing ideas like this and making them marketable is cooperation between govern-
ment and the private sector, he added.
“We’re a small company. We want to be the indus-
try leader, but it’s going to take a lot of different peo- ple, different technologies, different ideas to figure our way out of this problem. We need government support to help drive this; if there aren’t regulations, people aren’t going to pay to treat things they don’t have to.”
His advice to leaders everywhere?
“Listen to the public. This is one of the few envi- ronmental issues where it’s not just caught up in the science; the public is aware and want things done. So it’s going to take cooperation between the public, pri- vate industry, and government, all coming together to help solve this big issue.
“We’re not a solution looking for a problem,” Schneider added. “We want to be part of solving that problem. I’m a big believer in the public-health part of this as well as the environmental part. I wouldn’t be doing it otherwise.” u
GCC
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Hispanic students only.’ Well ... no, we were making all our practices and poli- cies better for all of our students.
“We worked very hard to get des- ignation, but along the way, we also worked on broadening our under- standing and awareness of all stu- dents,” she went on. “I lobbied in front of the board of trustees for more gender-neutral bathrooms and started a food bank and made sure we had a full-time veterans’ coordinator. Those are things that improve opportunities for all our students.
“When we’re taking about equity, we’re making sure that everyone has
Easthampton
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definitely bring clients there and let their families know about it, too. It’s really something everyone can enjoy.”
Natural surroundings like Mount Tom are part
of the attraction for new students at Williston Northampton School. The private college-prep school approaches the fall with a full enrollment. Ann Hal- lock, director of communications at Williston, said 495 students will be on campus, hailing from all over the U.S. as well as 30 different countries.
“We consider our location in Easthampton to be a unique selling point of the school,” Hallock said. “Stu- dents love the location, especially being able to walk into town for restaurants or visit shops or go for hikes on Mount Tom. Parents like all that too when they come to visit their kids.”
Williston students also get involved with several local organizations, such as the Easthampton Com- munity Center and the Emily Williston Library.
When classes begin in the fall, the new Mountain View School, housing students in grades K-8, will be fully open to all its students. As the finishing touches were added this year, middle-school students moved in during the spring. Now that construction is com- plete, the elementary students will begin their classes at Mountain View in the fall.
With the new school project done, LaChapelle has
Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]
the pandemic and its many side effects, as well as the coming year, an impor- tant milestone for GCC as it celebrates 60 years of growth and change.
Mostly, though, she’s looking for- ward to continuing what has become, in many respects, her life’s work in stu- dent services and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
As she said, if schools like GCC are to successfully recruit and retain stu- dents, they must take into account their entire experience. And this will be the focus of her efforts. u
George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]
the same opportunity,” she continued. “But how they get there may look very different, and the inclusion component of it is celebrating those differences, and there’s a lot of work to be done — in the field, in society — and Greenfield isn’t any different.”
Elaborating, she said it’s one of her goals to soon have an administrator focused specifically on diversity, equity, and inclusion, a broad realm that, as she said, goes beyond ethnic diversity and to those matters below the tip of the iceberg.
“DEI here might look at educational attainment, it might look at poverty and wealth inequities, it may include LGBTQ identities — there’s diversity
everywhere,” she said. “We can’t say, ‘we all look the same here in Greenfield or in the Pioneer Valley, so there is no diversity.’ Diversity is everywhere; it just may not be as obvious.”
Class Act
Looking ahead, Schutt said she’s looking forward to filling her calendar with meetings with local officials and members of the business community as she works to gain a broader under- standing of the community served by the college.
She’s also looking forward to the fall, and a projected increase in enrollment as the school looks to fully recover from
shifted her attention to finding a reuse for the Maple Street, Center, and Pepin schools, the three build- ings replaced by Mountain View. Later this summer, the mayor will issue a request for proposals that she hopes will attract the attention of developers who are planning their next construction season.
Naturally, the mayor would like to see the build- ings turn into housing.
“Depending on how they are developed, the three buildings could add as many as 150 rental housing units,” she said. “Realistically, we’re hoping to see 70 to 80 units get added to the housing rolls, with 20% to 25% of those designated affordable.”
The search for a developer comes after 18 months of residents working with a consultant to determine the needs and wishes of each neighborhood where the schools are located.
“It’s exciting because every step of the way, we have been talking with residents about the buildings,” the mayor said. “The residents have done an amazing job, and after all their input, it’s safe to say the people have spoken.”
When the people spoke and voted to allow can- nabis sales in Easthampton, no one knew what the impact might be on the city. In the beginning, there were fears of higher crime, underage use of cannabis, and fire-suppression issues in the shops. Now, with five dispensaries operating in the city, LaChapelle
said none of those concerns came to pass.
Instead, the biggest effect was increased wear and
tear on their roads.
“The revenue we’ve received from cannabis has
largely been spent on our roads because they have been heavily impacted with the additional traffic,” she told BusinessWest.
The mayor added that it’s actually good news
that the impact was on roads because many of them weren’t in good shape before cannabis came to town.
“We had to reprioritize which roads get paved because suddenly there are thousands more people driving on these roads,” she said.
Bottom Line
Now that the city is in a good place with its bud- get and has improved its bond rating since COVID, LaChapelle is reflective on how far Easthampton has come.
“I’m super proud of the people in our city depart- ments and their leaders in how they’ve taken all our projects head on,” she said. “I feel we haven’t dropped any of the balls we were juggling before COVID.”
She quickly added that, because Easthampton is such a desirable place to live, there’s plenty of work to be done going forward.
That’s the reality when you’re the ‘cool-kid city.’ u
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