By THOMAS P. CALDWELL, InDepthNH.org
DALTON — Granite State Landfill, LLC, the company seeking to site a new lined landfill in Dalton, is fighting local residents and a skeptical New Hampshire Wetlands Board to secure permission to begin the three-phase project that the company projects will be completed over at least three decades.
Parent company Casella Waste Systems already operates a landfill in nearby Bethlehem under the business name North Country Environmental Services, Inc. The state is investigating what is described as the state’s largest spill of leachate, with as much as 154,000 gallons of liquid runoff overflowing a holding tank and detention pond at the site, potentially reaching the Ammonoosuc River.
That problem, along with other complaints at sites in Massachusetts, Vermont, and New York, have both residents and environmental groups worried about Casella’s plans.
Environmental engineer John Gay attempted to answer the concerns in a filing before the Wetlands Board earlier this year.
A top concern is “why here?” With some 60 percent of the anticipated solid waste coming from out of state, the Wetlands Board asked whether the company had looked into siting the landfill in Massachusetts.
Gay wrote that only 8 percent of the land area in Massachusetts is potentially available because of siting and regulatory requirements in that state, and that doesn’t take into account the requirements that landfills must be at least 15,000 feet upgrade of public water supplies.
New Hampshire does not have such strict requirements. In describing the Dalton landfill’s proximity to drinking water supplies, Gay stated that the nearest public water supply well is located at the Forest Lake State Park beach, which is more than an a half-mile east of the proposed landfill. That is well within the 15,000-foot setback (2.8 miles) that the Bay State requires.
Private wells are even closer: “The sole private water supply well currently located on the site property serves the property owner’s residence (over 3,000 feet south of the proposed landfill footprint). The nearest known off-property private water supply wells are located on Route 116 (over 1 mile south), along West Forest Lake Road and Forest Lake (over 1/2-mile east, on the other side of the [topographical] divide), and on Mann Hill Road (over 1 mile west, on the opposite side of Alder Brook and Hatch Brook from the proposed site). These wells are separated from the proposed landfill site by considerable distance and topographically controlled hydraulic boundaries,” the filing states.
Day wrote that none of the 13 sites examined in Massachusetts met all of that state’s criteria, and he noted that Massachusetts has not approved a new landfill since the early 1990s when it approved the Crapo Hill Landfill in New Bedford. “This supports the conclusion that siting new solid waste landfills in Massachusetts has proven to be prohibitive within the current siting and regulatory requirements, despite historical diminishing land disposal capacity,” he wrote.
The possibility of putting a landfill in Maine is slim because of the state’s stand against accepting out-of-state solid waste. Last year, the Natural Resources Council of Maine, along with other environmental groups, submitted a petition to the Maine Board of Environmental Protection that would close a loophole in state law that allows recycling businesses in Maine to accept and then dump waste from out of state. The board denied the request, saying the petition conflicts with state law, but did add “environmental justice” to the standards that new projects will have to meet.
The New Hampshire Legislature believes that such bans on accepting out-of-state solid waste conflict with a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court concerning New Jersey’s attempt to impose such a ban. The court ruled that New Jersey’s ban violated the Commerce Clause restrictions against state-imposed burdens on commerce that are designed to ensure the economic well-being of one state at the expense of “the free and unfettered flow of interstate commerce.”
“Where simple economic protectionism is effected by state legislation, a virtually per se rule of invalidity has been erected,” the ruling stated. By discriminating against solid and liquid waste coming from outside the state without justification for the distinction, the New Jersey law was seen as violating the Commerce Clause prohibition against “protectionist” legislation.
During the July 14 Wetlands Board hearing in Whitefield, Julie Seeley of Bethlehem argued, “New Hampshire needs to take control of its own destiny, stop trading wetlands and our quality of life for unneeded and undesirable landfills, and deny this permit.”
Many of the concerns that the Wetlands Board asked the company to addresses had to do with potential pollution of Forest Lake, as well as the sight and smell of trash. Gay argued that the topography prevents pollution of the lake, and that the treeline will grow higher as the landfill develops, screening it from those using the state park.
Addressing the concerns about development of the land causing pollution, Gay wrote, “[O]verall flow directions are unlikely to be changed by small, localized changes in groundwater elevation at a given location. … There is no evidence of groundwater or surface water flow to the east towards Forest Lake.”
He continued, “The modern landfill design is founded in multiple layers of containment (liners) and sophisticated monitoring and surveillance systems. … Beyond the containment system, monitoring wells are installed at various depths 360 degrees around the landfill for sampling.”
He said the company will incorporate a geosynthetic clay liner beneath the primary liner, noting it is not required by regulation. “When hydrated by a leak, the montmorillonite clay will seal the leak from below as the clay expands and create an impermeable layer. The natural montmorillonite clay will last forever,” he wrote. Geomembrane liners “are inert and stable in a landfill environment, and are expected to remain fully functional for at least 500 years, much longer than the contained waste rate of degradation.”
Dalton does not have zoning laws, but the town enacted an emergency temporary zoning ordinance that requires a special exception for the project to move forward. Granite State Landfill has not applied. “Under New Hampshire law, a town cannot prohibit the siting of a landfill through the language of its ordinance or the exercise of its zoning powers, and the scope of its ability to impose conditions on a special exception is very narrow because most of the authority it would ordinarily have is preempted by NHDES regulation. GLS is considering the application sent by the town [for a special exception] and will decide whether, and if applicable, how to apply in due course,” Gay wrote in the Wetlands Board filing.
Earlier this year, in response to residents’ concerns, the New Hampshire House passed a bill to protect state parks in towns without zoning laws, but the Senate rejected the bill, arguing that it should remain a local decision.
Gay maintains, “By any objective scientific measure, the landfill will have no adverse impact on commerce, recreation, or aesthetics with respect to Forest Lake or the Ammonoosuc.”