Latest news with #KelleyPotenza
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
As New Hampshire looks to reshape its solid waste future, all eyes are on the state Senate
Under the bill, landfills would be required to always have at least one person on site. (Photo by) The New Hampshire Senate has often trashed landfill bills. But with growing political attention to solid waste issues, including from the governor, advocates hope this year will be different. An early test came Tuesday, when the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee heard one bill to pause new landfills in the state for three years and another that seeks to rewrite recently updated regulations that some say are far too weak. The bills — House Bill 171 and House Bill 707, respectively — complement one another in ways. Advocates say the state should need only one new landfill in the next century. They argue taking a pause on new development will allow the state time to consider issues like the ones raised in HB 707 related to siting landfills, as well as others like managing the 'trash juice' several landfills have failed to handle properly, or addressing the fact that half the waste dumped in New Hampshire comes from out of state. Both bills proved uncontroversial in the House, passing on the consent calendar, where lawmakers approve a host of committee recommendations on legislation all at once and without debate. Solid waste issues in the state have garnered bipartisan support, with bills being led by both Republicans and Democrats. 'Landfills should be the last resort, and we only really need one in the next 100 years,' Rep. Kelley Potenza, a Rochester Republican leading HB 707, told committee members. 'And let's do it in a perfect place that's got good soil, clay, and we can make it happen.' In the backdrop of the legislative debates is a proposal for a new landfill that many — including Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte — have criticized for its close proximity to a pristine lake and state park. Casella Waste Systems, the Vermont company that has fought for years for the landfill in the northern town of Dalton, is now fighting the Department of Environmental Services in court over the agency's recent denial of a solid waste permit application for the project. HB 707 seeks to address criticisms against the state's updated landfill regulations, which went into effect in December. The body that gave the final green light to those changes, the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, had approved them even as some members were concerned they weren't adequately protective. Lawmakers on the panel argued, though, that those issues were policy ones for the Legislature to decide. This bill aims to take up that mantle. For one, it would establish stricter setback standards for new landfills from 'any existing drinking water well, perennial river, lake, or coastal water of New Hampshire.' Landfills would have to be 1,500 feet from those waters or be set back far enough so that groundwater from the site would take more than five years to reach those waters in the event of a leak or failure. Whichever of those two setbacks is the greatest would be what is required of the site. Additionally, it would strengthen the state's requirements for the hydraulic conductivity of the soil at the site of a landfill, a metric that helps describe how quickly contaminated water would move through the soil in the event of a leak or failure. Some types of earth, like sand or gravel, are more permeable than others, like clay. This standard — which would require a hydraulic conductivity of 0.0001 centimeters per second or less — would apply to the natural soils 20 feet below the landfill and under leachate storage and transfer stations. The current standard is 0.001 centimeters per second or less for the natural soil of the landfill going down 5 feet in depth. (The lower the rate, the slower pollution would move through the soil.) Or, in what critics have called a 'loophole' in the current regulations, a landfill can import a 2-foot base of soil with a hydraulic conductivity of 0.0001 centimeters per second or less. The bill would eliminate that option, stating explicitly that 'no amount of imported soil can overcome such deficiency' in the hydraulic conductivity of a site's natural soil. The bill would also require that applicants for new landfills and expansions to investigate the sediments and bedrock beneath and adjacent to the proposed site, 'at least to the depth of any aquifers currently used to provide drinking water to residents.' Under the bill, landfills would be required to always have at least one person on site. It also directs the department to incorporate the Ford Act into its landfill permitting requirements, 'specifically the provision limiting the construction or establishment of municipal solid waste landfills within 6 miles of certain smaller public airports.' Current law says the department 'may' deny a permit if a person 'fails to demonstrate sufficient reliability, expertise, integrity, and competence to operate a solid waste facility.' It may also deny a permit if a person or a company's 'officers, directors, partners, key employees or persons or business entities holding 10 percent or more of its equity or debt liability' were convicted or pleaded guilty or no contest to a felony within the past five years in state or federal court. This bill would change that 'may' to a 'shall,' making it a requirement that the department reject permits under those conditions instead of an option. The legislation would also make what advocates say is a key change to the statute governing the department's rulemaking. Instead of simply saying the commissioner has the responsibility and authority to adopt rules, it adds that those rules 'are necessary to protect the public health and the environment with an ample margin of safety relative to this chapter.' Some lawmakers on the panel, as well as a representative of Waste Management, which intends to expand its Turnkey facility in Rochester, indicated they would like more clarity in the language of the bill about how broad its exemption for expanding landfills is. Henry Veilleux, a lobbyist for Waste Management, said the standard for the 20 feet of undisturbed soil beneath the landfill 'would be problematic' and could create issues for the landfill starting in 2028. If the bill was changed so the landfill was allowed to bring in other material to be compliant, 'then it would be OK,' he said. He also raised issues with part of the bill that would strengthen existing references to storm events in permitting requirements to apply to 100-year storms 'with a 50% margin of safety,' arguing the department's current model makes more sense for the region. Though he raised concerns about these provisions, Veilleux also told the committee members he had just spoken to Potenza, and that the bill did not intend to impact the Turnkey facility. Shaun Mulholland, Lebanon's city planner, said he was concerned that parts of the bill would affect the city's plans to excavate its unlined landfill 'that is leaking into the ground' into a lined one. He said Waste Management had identified a number of those concerns, but also added that he felt it would be challenging for the city to find staff for a guard onsite 24/7, considering it already has 'great difficulty in this labor market in hiring people just to work in the daytime at the landfill.' He suggested technology like sensors would be more appropriate and effective. Michael Wimsatt, director of DES' waste management division, defended the department's rules at the hearing. He said those rules include a site-specific setback requirement, but critics reject that characterization. Wimsatt pointed to language that says landfills and associated infrastructure 'shall be located only in areas where groundwater monitoring for release detection, characterization and remediation can be conducted prior to a release having an adverse impact on groundwater quality at the property line' and before it has 'an adverse impact on a water supply.' It also requires the landfills are located so that releases 'will be detected and assessed, and remediation initiated prior to contamination reaching any perennial water body.' Current regulations also require more general setbacks of 200 feet from certain streams and 500 feet from other water bodies. Wayne Morrison, president of the North Country Alliance for Balanced Change, a citizen group that has advocated for more protective waste policies, called the provision Wimsatt cited 'a motherhood statement.' 'We think it lacks the heat behind it,' he said. On DES' argument that its current regulations are site specific, Potenza was blunt: 'They aren't.' 'That doesn't give anyone any instruction,' Potenza said of the provisions, 'and to be honest … it puts the state in a very precarious position, I believe, for lawsuits and everything like that, because it doesn't have anything, literally, specific.' Under the state's regulations, 'you can put a landfill anywhere in the state of New Hampshire right now, as long as you bring in some soil,' Potenza said. 'Doesn't matter what that … site is, as long as you're 500 feet back.' She called the state's rules the weakest in the world; when asked by a lawmaker if that was the case, Wimsatt said, 'I don't believe that for a moment.' The conversation on landfill siting underscored the push for a pause on new landfills in the state. And it's not just the direct neighbors of landfills who are affected, Morrison said. 'What I have found is it's in everybody's backyard,' he said. 'New Hampshire's a small state. If you mess up a water table, it doesn't just affect Dalton, it affects all the surrounding towns.' He said the state has ample landfill capacity to buy it time to carefully consider how it wants to move forward with its solid waste management. 'We have the time, and … I think we have the obligation to future generations of people in New Hampshire to step back, do the investigations, find best practices, think differently about what we're doing,' Morrison said. 'We have to live with these decisions for the next 100 years, and we have the time to fix them. Let's try and get it right.'
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bill elevates soil type in debate over how far NH landfills should be from water sources
Rochester Republican Rep. Kelley Potenza, right, presents her bill to establish site-specific setback requirements for landfills. (Photo by Claire Sullivan/New Hampshire Bulletin) Concerned advocates and lawmakers have said the state's recently updated regulations would allow a landfill to be built almost anywhere in the state. A bipartisan bill is trying to change that. House Bill 707, led by Rochester Republican Rep. Kelley Potenza, is based on a simple idea: Different types of soil are more permeable than others. For that reason, proponents of the bill argue, how close a landfill can be built to a water source should be based on the specific characteristics of that site, not one fixed distance that is applied to all facilities. A landfill must be a set minimum distance from certain types of water sources under the state's regulations. For wetlands and certain types of streams, it can be no closer than 200 feet; for others, it's 500 feet. It also cannot be within 1,000 feet of a 'surface water reservoir or intake used for a community drinking water supply.' This legislation would base a landfill's setback from water on time, not distance. It would make it so new landfills are sited only in areas where it would take at least five years for pollution, in the event of a leak, to reach a water source. It also strengthens a number of other requirements related to permitting landfills in the state. 'The real New Hampshire advantage is to have clean drinking water and wonderful, clean spaces,' Potenza told her fellow lawmakers on the House Environment and Agriculture Committee at a hearing Tuesday. 'We have nothing if we don't have that.' The bill is a response to the recently approved updates to the state's landfill regulations – which Potenza described as, 'from one criteria alone, the weakest rules in the world.' A legislative panel greenlit those rules for adoption in December. Though lawmakers on the committee expressed concerns that the rules were not adequately protective, all but one voted in favor of approving them, arguing the critiques were policy issues for the Legislature to take up and outside the purview of the oversight panel. The action comes as one crucial landfill battle in the state appears close to an end. Gov. Kelly Ayotte said in her inaugural address last month that a new landfill proposed by the Vermont-based company Casella Waste Systems in the tiny, northern town of Dalton near Forest Lake would not go forward. But, as a host of landfill bills up for debate this legislative session signal, the yearslong fight of advocates and lawmakers dedicated to waste issues doesn't end with the Dalton landfill. 'It's not about one project,' Potenza said. 'Right now, the rules will allow a landfill to be put pretty much anywhere. So if the rules are not rewritten, some company could come in – could come to Nashua, could come to Keene, Concord, wherever – and find another terrible tract of land and claim that the rules entitle them to build there.' Her bill aims to change that. It would require the Department of Environmental Services to establish a site-specific setback distance for new landfills, which must 'be sufficient to prevent any contaminated groundwater at any part of the landfill footprint or leachate storage or piping infrastructure from reaching any perennial river, lake, or coastal water of New Hampshire within 5 years.' It would require permit applicants, at their own expense, to hire a hydrogeologist – one that 'has never worked with or been contracted through a third party with any applicant's current or previous projects' – to help assess the site. The bill provides a method for calculating the five-year setback distance. It also seeks to address another point of contention in the rules: the standard for 'hydraulic conductivity,' which essentially describes the rate at which pollution would move through the ground in the event of a leak. The state's regulations require that the soil 5 feet below the footprint of a landfill have a representative saturated hydraulic conductivity of 0.001 centimeters per second or less. Alternatively, it can import a 2-foot base of soil that could be permeable enough that pollution could pass through it in just eight days. Amy Manzelli, an attorney with BCM Environmental & Land Law representing the citizen group North Country Alliance for Balanced Change, called the imported soil rule 'a loophole so big you can drive a Mack truck through it.' She told lawmakers, in response to a question, that she believes it effectively allows a landfill to be sited anywhere in the state. The bill would ax the imported soil loophole and provide a stricter hydraulic conductivity standard of 0.00001 centimeters per second or less. (The slower the rate, the slower the pollution moves through the ground in the event of a leak.) That would apply to soils 20 feet below the landfill footprint, as well as underneath 'all leachate storage and transfer infrastructure.' It would also require landfill permit applicants to plan for 200-year storm events 'in relation to design, maintenance, leachate management, etc.,' a more serious weather event than the regulations currently require they prepare for. There were a few parts of the bill where Potenza said she 'got a little aggressive, and those are up for some changes.' She pointed to a part of the bill that would prohibit the department from issuing a permit to operate a landfill 'to any applicant who has been found in violation of any federal, state, or local environmental laws, regulations, or permit conditions anywhere in the United States.' Perhaps, she suggested, this could be changed to repeated violations. She also suggested changing part of the legislation that would prevent a landfill from being permitted within 10 miles of another landfill or a 'groundwater contamination active Superfund site.' Both those requirements would pose practical challenges, said Michael Wimsatt, director of the solid waste management division of DES. He said, because of the number of landfill requirements, 'there's always going to be violations.' And because of the state's 22 Superfund sites, its number of active landfills, and its 300 unlined landfills, he said he wasn't sure 'any of the state would be left' if a 10-mile radius was drawn around each of those facilities. Wimsatt also raised the question of whether the bill should include expansions of existing facilities. 'It's not clear to the department why the members of a community where the facility exists deserve less protective conditions than the members of a community where a new facility is being proposed,' he said. Wimsatt made a number of other technical comments on the bill, on which he said the department was taking no position. He said the agency would be available to assist the committee as it did further work on the bill. Wayne Morrison, the president of the North Country Alliance for Balanced Change, a solid waste advocacy group run by volunteers, said the site-specific setback for landfills would be essential in buying time to protect water sources in case of an accident. 'We should assume at some point the landfill is going to fail,' Morrison told lawmakers. 'And when it does, the only thing protecting us is that siting criteria that sets it back far enough to prevent the problem from becoming irreversible.'
