Eliot Wessler

Chair Aron and members of the House E&A Committee: As outlined by Director Wimsatt and acknowledged by sponsors of HB707, some of the technical aspects of the bill (as introduced) need to be further considered and presumably changed. With all parties working in good faith, I am confident that an amended bill can be forged which can and should be voted out unanimously by the Committee as OTP. I watched the February 4th hearing for the bill and have the following comment, a follow-up to questions posed by Rep. Aron and Rep. Germana. Their questions went to what evidence exists to counter the assertion that adopting a landfill siting rule with a specific hydraulic conductivity standard (such as proposed in the bill) would essentially preclude, or at least make difficult, the siting of a new landfill anywhere in New Hampshire. The response provided by Rep. Potenza to these questions was that there is no such evidence. This seems absolutely correct, given that no such evidence has ever been provided to the Legislature or to the department. What evidence is there that there is no evidence? The issue of such evidence was vetted in the recent JLCAR process re approval of the department's proposed Chapter 800 rules. The quotes shown below are verbatim from the department's written objection response (dated December 12, 2024) to the JLCAR Committee’s vote on November 21, 2024. In Exhibit 3, page 4: DES writes “Other commenters including several industry representatives commented that the initial values proposed in the conceptual, working draft would make it very difficult to site new landfills or to expand the existing landfills in the state. One industry representative referenced a statewide study that had been conducted for a private client that they claim showed this result. The representative was unwilling to share the document.” Also in Exhibit 3, page 4: DES writes “During meetings requested by stakeholders, NHDES staff asked other concerned members of the regulated community to provide information and documents to demonstrate that the conceptual, working draft was so stringent that it would prevent the siting of any new landfill or the expansion of any existing landfill, but the department did not receive any supporting documentation.” With regard to the New Hampshire soil map mentioned in the HB707 hearing, some perspective is helpful. It was the department's position just two months ago that while the map showed that over 80% of New Hampshire is covered with relatively non-permeable soils suitable for landfill development, the map was not developed for purposes of landfill siting policy, and the map per se provided no evidence to disprove the assertion that a hydraulic conductivity standard would impede needed landfill development. In Exhibit 3, page 3: the department said that public comments re the proposed Chapter 800 rules represent a “...misuse of the referenced map, which agency staff understand to be a map whose purpose was to display areas of potentially highly productive groundwater resources based upon soil type. This macro scale statewide map is not intended and cannot be relied upon to determine where landfills could be developed.” While it is apparently true that the referenced map was not developed for purposes of siting landfills, it was the only bit of verifiable evidence of the geographic dispersion of soil permeability in New Hampshire introduced into the entire rulemaking process. In multiple ways, public comments sought an answer from the department to the following question for which there was no answer provided, i.e.,: If the referenced map was not adequate, what soil permeability data has been presented to the department or otherwise developed by the department to answer the important question of whether a protective hydraulic conductivity standard will or will not impede needed landfill development in New Hampshire? The upshot is this: Maine and Vermont have similar (though obviously not identical) hydrogeologic/soils profiles to New Hampshire, and the hydraulic conductivity standards used in those states has been thoroughly researched and have been shown to not be an impediment to needed landfill development.