By Thomas P. Caldwell, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD — The Waste Management Division of the state Department of Environmental Services will be taking public comment in August on its draft Solid Waste Management Plan, which has not been updated since 2003. The department has a deadline of Oct. 1 to submit a new plan to the state.
During a meeting of the legislatively established Solid Waste Working Group this week, members expressed concerns that the latest draft they reviewed did not express forcefully enough the need to reduce the amount of solid waste going to landfills.
Marc Morgan, Lebanon’s solid waste manager, was adamant that the plan include specific mention of the need for an in-state recycling facility.
“I’m trying to actually do something here that’s making a difference in our diversion of solid waste, and all the stuff that we’re talking about are just a bunch of words,” Morgan said. “I think there’s a demand for such a thing, because without the ability to divert this waste, we’re just not going to get where we need to go. … [T]here’s an urgency here that we’re not talking about enough, that is specific to climate change. … It needs to be moving a lot more aggressively than kicking this can down the road to 2030 or 2050.”
Rep. Karen Ebel, D-New London, who serves as chair of the working group, said of the draft, “I feel like it’s lacking heart somehow.”
Michael Wimsatt, the director of Waste Management Division, said he would try to incorporate the committee’s suggestions into the draft being prepared for the August public comment period, but the time to make changes is short, so not all of them may make it into the document before it goes out. He assured the members, however, that the DES will consider all of their comments, along with those of the public, when creating the final report.
Sen. James Gray, R-Rochester, expressed his disappointment that the working group would not have a chance to weigh in on the final version before it is submitted on Oct. 1. Ebel said the group would not be meeting again before that time because the DES needed time to process all of the public comments and incorporate them into the plan.
“I thought this group here was going to help decide which [of the public comments] were going to be incorporated,” Gray said.
Ebel agreed with Wimsatt that the group is just providing input into the report going out on Oct. 1.
“The Solid Waste Working Group’s role is to provide input to the agency in its preparation of the Solid Waste Plan,” Wimsatt said. “We not only take everything that’s happened now and today; we’re very interested in anything that’s provided to us over the next month or so. Having said that, it is not a situation as I understand it that it’s going to be appropriate for the group to vote on whether they approve the plan, because that is not a role or a mandate that the group was provided by the legislature.”
“I’m just very surprised,” Gray said. “All these groups that I’ve met with, that we get public input and that goes to the department and doesn’t come back to the group, it doesn’t make sense to me.”
“In order to do that, we would have to work on it over the next month, give you a new draft without any regard to the public comments that we received, which is kind of important, and then take your comments on that, so it would still be a very incomplete and imperfect exercise,” Wimsatt responded.
The committee’s comments included several additional “action items” with specific reference to things like plastics, PFAS and other toxic substances, and outside groups that can assist in meeting the goals. Identifying and suggesting specific legislation that would be needed is another topic that received a lot of discussion.
Wimsatt noted that New Hampshire severely limits what types of incentives can be provided to encourage companies to get involved in technical solutions for some of the material that is getting into the solid waste stream. The department can offer education and make suggestions, but it is up to private firms to determine what they want to do.
The director repeatedly emphasized that the plan has to remain “high-level” rather than being too specific because it has to be a living document that can change as situations and technology change. In following the Solid Waste Management Plan, the department can develop annual action plans to address the specific needs as they exist at the time.
One area of discussion was the role of the state and that of the municipalities. Wimsatt suggested that the DES should take a larger role in the collection of household hazardous waste, which typically occurs once a year through the efforts of local planning commissions. He said the DES could coordinate with the municipalities to identify regional locations where household hazardous waste could be dropped off throughout the year, rather than having to be stored for the annual collections.
State law requires a Solid Waste Management Plan to set out goals, strategies, and actions to reduce the amount of solid waste through source reduction, diversion of waste, and ensure enough capacity to handle the state’s solid waste.