The other town you will be spending some time in is Woronoco. Though not a town at all, it is actually a village in the town of Russell. Once named Salmon Falls, presumably after the cascades along the Westfield river in which locals undoubtedly viewed Atlantic Salmon as they swam upstream, Woronoco is one of 5 villages in the town of Russell. The others are Woronoco Heights, Crescent Mills, South Quarter, and Russell Village being the administrative center.
In 1965 Russell joined with neighboring towns to form Gateway Regional School District that now educates some 1300 students at an annual cost to taxpayers of about $15,000 per student. With very little industrial and commercial property to share this tax burden, Russell has one of the highest tax rates per unit assessed value in the state.
In 2004 a biomass generating plant was proposed to take advantage of the former Westfield River Paper Co. site along the Westfield River with access to water, the former Boston and Albany Railroad line, and abundant supplies of waste wood in rejuvenating forests as a byproduct of real estate development, logging and forestry work to remove defective trees and less valuable species. The biomass proposal proved highly controversial. Although it would have created a number of jobs and lightened the tax burden, opponents have raised concerns of truck traffic through town, air pollution, water withdrawals and thermal pollution of water returned to the river after use for cooling purposes.
The cache you are searching for is a bison tube in the woods. ;-)
This is the Proposed Biomass Site
