The trial of a Northborough man accused of running an illegal dump on Whitney Street resumed Friday, with the prosecution questioning state workers it claims confirmed neighbors' suspicions about the operation.
Santo Anza Jr., 52, of Reservoir Street, is accused of violating the Solid Waste and Clean Air acts, as well as animal cruelty laws on his 429 Whitney St. farm, which prosecutors allege he used as a front for a dump.
His trial, which is being decided by a judge rather than a jury, began last week in Worcester Superior Court, with neighbors testifying as to "putrid" odors they smelled coming from the property in summer 2011 and drivers saying they brought food, cardboard and other waste there.
In a half-day session in Worcester Superior Court Friday, lawyers sparred over a number of different written and oral statements before the court, with defense attorney Mark Miliotis repeatedly objecting to stipulations made by state Department of Environmental Protection workers.
Michelle Delemarre, an air quality expert at DEP, was questioned extensively by both sides about a series of odor inspection reports by a DEP inspector.
Air Pollution Engineer Paul Dwiggins went to the neighborhood 10 times between Aug. 9 and Aug. 24, 2011, Delemarre said, and concluded that air pollution was coming from the farm.
Miliotis drew attention to technical aspects of the report, which he insinuated showed that the smell on the days in question wasn’t that bad.
Dwiggins employed a system of labeling the smell between zero and 5, Miliotis said, with zero being no smell and 5 being the worst imaginable.
After reviewing the reports, Delemarre confirmed that the highest number Dwiggins gave the smell was a 3, which happened on three occasions. A zero was given three of the days, she confirmed.
Delemarre disagreed with attempts to suggest that the odor therefore must not have been bad, saying that detecting odor is a tricky business and that smells often come and go in different locations with the wind.
"You have to look at the (odor strength) and the duration," she said, emphasizing that odors were detected on seven of the 10 days.
Delemarre did not smell the odors herself, Miliotis said, since she was on maternity leave in summer 2011. Judge Richard Tucker suggested that one of the two sides could call Dwiggins to testify for a firsthand account of the smell.
The prosecution also called James McQuade, who acts as the head of the solid waste section for DEP in central Massachusetts.
