Comtois, Brouillard sole opponents of landfill moratorium compromise

CONCORD — A last-minute attempt to further reduce the length of a proposed moratorium on the issuance of new landfill permits failed during the House Environment and Agriculture Committee’s executive session on Feb. 20, with only Reps. Barbara Comtois (R-Center Barnstead) and Jacob Brouillard (R-Nottingham) voting against setting an end date of 2028. They wanted to end the moratorium in 2027.

House Bill 1620 as introduced would have delayed new permits until 2031, three years before the Department of Environmental Services predicts any landfill capacity problems and even longer before an actual shortfall is likely. As Wayne Morrison of the North Country Alliance for Balanced Change testified during a committee hearing, the DES date of 2034 assumes the landfill operated by Waste Management will shut down at that time. In fact, the landfill can expand to additional acreage that would extend its life for decades.

In sponsoring the bill, Rep. David Rochefort of Grafton District 1 accepted the hypothetical capacity shortfall in 2034 and crafted the bill to allow DES to issue a new landfill permit in 2031. In a further compromise, the bill allows DES to continue reviewing landfill permits during the moratorium while it is updating its solid waste rules. The proposed moratorium also gives the state time to determine how well other solid waste legislation that is under consideration is working.

Shortly after Rochefort filed the legislation, Casella Waste Systems, which had withdrawn its earlier application to build a landfill near Forest Lake State Park in Dalton, submitted a new landfill application. The Department of Justice is considering whether the proposed moratorium would apply to Casella’s current application, which is under review.

In testimony before the committee on Feb. 13, Kirsten Koch, vice president of Public Policy for the Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire, of which Casella is a member, opposed the bill, saying it is unnecessary, that the date 2031 is arbitrary, and that it takes six to 10 years to obtain a landfill permit. She said it “basically allows for applications to be held while the goalpost is moved, whether it’s the rules or legislation.”

In their deliberations on Feb. 14, committee members agreed a moratorium is a good idea, but they questioned the seven-year delay and settled on four years. Yet during its executive session on Feb. 20, Chair Rep. Judy Aron (R-South Ackworth) said she had reconsidered and thought halting new permits only until 2027 would be sufficient.

“I feel more comfortable with the 2027 date simply because, you know, we’re making some policy changes and DES is working through the rule updates, and I think ... giving it until 2027 for all the dust to settle is more, I feel more comfortable with that date as opposed to waiting yet one more year for this pause.”

Rep. Peter Bixby (D-Dover) pointed out the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests strongly supports the bill with its original date of 2031, but said, in the spirit of compromise, he can support an end date of 2028, but not 2027.

“I think 2028 is the best date to meet what we are hearing from our constituents in the North Country and also from the Forest Society,” he said.

Rep. Molly Howard (D-Hancock) agreed 2027 is an insufficient amount of time to determine whether the new criteria are sound. She said, “A permit has been put in, and I think that just kicking it down the road is dangerous, because there is a very aggressive pursuit of sites.”

Rep. Linda Haskins (D-Exeter) argued for the original 2031 date, saying, “there are maneuvers going on right now as we sit here” to undermine environmental protections.

Comtois argued for the 2027 end date, saying, “DES is coming out with a whole set of rules this summer. We’re gonna get to look at them. We’re gonna get to examine them. The people that are applying for permits will get to understand what the new guidelines are. We’ll get to assess the things that this committee has been talking about over the next legislative cycle. And the thing is, if in 2026 if we feel that things aren’t going the way they should, there can always be another bill put in.”

Rep. Sherry Dutzy (D-Nashua) argued having a moratorium puts pressure on the state to focus on the priority of source reduction. “I sense that there’s a lot of resistance on the part of industry and on the part of politicians to really move forward with source reduction, which is where we need to be,” she said. “I would like to see 2031, but in the preference for coming to a consensus, I could agree to 2028.”

Rep. Nicholas Germana (D-Keene), who co-sponsored the bill, pointed out that latest draft of the DES landfill siting regulations shows “further weakening of standards, based upon even the draft that we had in January, which had weakened the standards from October. That does not give me a lot of confidence that we’re headed in the right direction, so I would actually like to see this [bill] stronger. I think 2028 is already a real compromise on the part of people who would like a much more robust bill.”

Aron, who had supported the earliest date, said, “In listening to all this really good reasoning going on, I will in fact be supporting 2028.”

That amendment passed the committee, 16-2, with Comtois and Brouillard voting against it. The committee then unanimously voted to recommend sending it to the full House with a recommendation of “ought to pass with amendment.”