ROCHESTER — The nonprofit Conservation Law Foundation is attempting to stop Waste Management’s 58.6-acre expansion of the Turnkey Landfill due to environmental concerns.
The CLF is urging local residents to email state regulators by Thursday afternoon to request the proposed expansion be blocked. CLF Senior Fellow Kirstie Pecci said she feels it’s “really unconscionable” regulators would consider expanding the state’s largest landfill when groundwater monitoring on the 1,200-acre site has revealed concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in recent years.
“You’re building a Superfund site,” said Pecci, who works on CLF’s Zero Waste Project. “You’ve got acres upon acres being built (near the Cocheco and Isinglass rivers), and you know it’s going to escape the landfill. It’s absolutely certain it is, and you know it already has. This is incredibly scary to me and really upsetting.”
Waste Management’s proposal would effectively create a new, 14-million-ton capacity site adjacent to the existing Turnkey Landfill site at 90 Rochester Neck Road in Gonic, according to information previously presented to the city.
Waste Management officials couldn’t be reached for comment.
The state has previously permitted the roughly 30-year-old Turnkey to operate until 2024. As proposed, the 58.6-acre expansion would be allowed to operate for 11 years, according to information previously presented to the city.
The Rochester Planning Board approved the expansion in December. The next step is for the company to obtain various state permits. Rochester was previously told Waste Management expects final permitting decisions to be made between the end of 2018 and early 2019. If approved according to that timeline, Waste Management has indicated the expansion would begin in 2019 and be complete by 2020.
As a part of the permitting process, the state Department of Environmental Services is accepting comments from the public through 4 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 25.
The CLF has created a secure online form to help concerned individuals fill out and send emails to regulators. That form can be found at http://bit.ly/2n6qGBL.
The public comment period began Dec. 5 and initially ended Jan. 5, although Pecci said the CLF was able to secure an extension. She said she believes not enough people are aware of Waste Management's application, which she said could be due to the fact, she claims, there was only one public DES meeting on the topic. That meeting was Dec. 19, she said.
Turnkey serves communities locally and as far away as Keene, the Boston area, and Portland, Maine. In late 2016, Waste Management estimated Turnkey had accumulated more than 20 million tons of trash during its 30-year history, while Pecci said the landfill reportedly added another 1.4 million in 2017. According to Pecci, of the 1.4 million tons buried in 2017, 800,000 tons originated from out of the state.
A copy of Waste Management’s full 2,211-page application for the Turnkey Landfill expansion can be found at DES’ website at http://bit.ly/2DuR5iK.
In the application, Waste Management outlines some of the findings of its groundwater monitoring program.
The program, according to the company, has found low concentrations of a variety of VOCs in monitoring wells over the years, including 1,4 dioxane, a harmful solvent that dissolves in water. Potential sources for that dioxane include landfill gas, leachate breakouts, the construction of part of the landfill's liner in the early 1990s, or other sources, according to the application.
In addition to the Planning Board, Rochester's Conservation Commission also reviewed the project at the local level because the expansion involves dredging and filling wetlands. City Planning Director Jim Campbell said the commission and board are "OK" with that work due to how Waste Management plans to mitigate potential negative impacts.
Pecci said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been warning of inevitable landfill leakage and failures since the 1950s. In light of that and the numerous alternatives to landfills being implemented in other parts of the world, Pecci said New Hampshire should take its opportunity to avoid worsening a site for which she claims there already “is no way to properly remediate” once it closes.
“It seems crazy for the city to be trying to clean up rivers (like the Cocheco) and on the other hand putting the largest landfill in New England right next to it,” she said. “They’re basically building a disaster for the state of New Hampshire, and Rochester and the state are going to end up holding the bag."
In late 2016, Steven Poggi, director of disposal operations for Waste Management, indicated to Foster’s Daily Democrat the future of the landfill and his company’s operation in Rochester hinged on whether the company could expand after Turnkey’s permit expires in 2024.
The loss could pose challenging for the Lilac City, as Waste Management is its largest taxpayer.
As of late 2016, the site was assessed at $62.9 million and the company paid the Lilac City $1.7 million in taxes in 2016. More current figures weren’t immediately available Tuesday. Since those figures were reported, Rochester has performed a citywide reassessment and renegotiated its host agreement with Waste Management.
Should Waste Management ever leave Rochester, the city is expected to use the Rochester Economic Development Special Reserve Fund to spur economic development to make up for the lost tax revenue. Each year, City Council has dedicated at least $100,000 from the Waste Management host agreement to that fund for that purpose.