news

Bottomless pits: Potholes may plague area roads, but highway bosses say this year isn't as bad as prior years

smerzbach — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 -0500

Dark spots in the pavement where potholes are forming and homemade signs providing warnings about frost heaves have become part of the landscape of Shutesbury Road in Amherst this winter. The same story pervades other cities and towns in the Pioneer Valley. Yet despite the problems Garland and her neighbors have encountered, Amherst DPW Superintendent Guilford Mooring and other area road bosses say this winter could have been worse for potholes and taken more of a toll on roads.
--Agree? Disagree? Email us with your pothole locations or tales

Pothole possibilities

Daily Hampshire Gazette — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 -0500

Gazette staff photographer Gordon Daniels is a longtime student of the pothole and has photographed them for decades for the newspaper. When potholes started to appear in Valley roads this winter, he decided to document them in a different way, by imagining how they might be used - and enjoyed - by children. That is, if the traffic would just go away.

Kollmorgen cleans up old spill

Chad Cain — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 -0500

NORTHAMPTON - Kollmorgen Electro-Optical is taking steps to clean up a years-old oil or hazardous waste spill at a commercial and industrial site it owns in the Northampton Industrial Park.

The company first discovered the spill at 168 Industrial Drive in the mid-1990s. At the time, the contamination fell below the state Department of Environmental Protection levels for remediation.

Frontier school board backs $8.7 million budget

Charliesdad — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 -0500

DEERFIELD - The Frontier Regional School Committee approved a tentative $8.7 million dollar budget that would restore a full-time art and drama teaching position and maintain the same curriculum and level of services as this year.

Northampton task force pushes ambitious project against bullying

cbaum — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 -0500

SOUTH HADLEY - A South Hadley task force is working to make schools safer and healthier learning environments, using member suggestions and the anti-bullying bill on Beacon Hill as guideposts.

When all's lost, kindness counts: Woman opens her home to Belchertown family devastated by fire

Ben Storrow — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 -0500

BELCHERTOWN - Wes and Danielle McBain lost everything, except a wedding dress.

Northampton schools forum weighs busing, start times

cbaum — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 -0500

NORTHAMPTON - A forum for parents of Northampton students and the community will take on two controversial topics Monday: bus fees and school starting and ending times.