As Senate puts five House landfill proposals on hold, all eyes are on one still in play

The New Hampshire Senate considered five waste-related reform proposals from the House on Thursday, May 7. Each bill had at least one sponsor from each chamber, and from each party; but the Senate did not pass any of them, instead referring each for further study.

Sen. Howard Pearl, a Loudon Republican, said some of the ideas the bills contain would be incorporated into the multifaceted landfill proposal the Senate is working on in an amended version of House Bill 707. But that bill has proven controversial among stakeholders, especially in the North Country, and the overarching question of the debate — whether towns should have the final say in deciding where landfills are sited — remains unresolved.

Last month, organizers with North Country Alliance for Balanced Change urged Gov. Kelly Ayotte to reject the current Senate version of HB 707 should it make it to her desk. But on the Senate floor Thursday, Pearl said he was engaging with “stakeholders” and pressing ahead with further changes to make the bill more amenable. Sen. David Rochefort, a Littleton Republican who has pushed for local control in the siting process, said he was open to engaging further on HB 707 as a possible solution.

In an interview on Friday, North Country Alliance for Balanced Change Vice President Tom Tower said he was still apprehensive.

“(HB) 707, as it exists today, is a bill that certainly many, many folks, including NCABC and others, just cannot support,” he said. 

An array of proposals

Three bills were sent for interim study through the consent calendar on Thursday.

The first was House Bill 215, from prime sponsor Rep. Nicholas Germana, a Keene Democrat. The bill would require the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services to review a third-party assessment of the “harms and benefits” of any proposed landfill before the project is permitted to move forward.

House Bill 1138, also from Germana, would set a limit on the amount of out-of-state waste accepted at New Hampshire landfills. Existing operators would be capped at 30%; future operators would be capped at 15%.

And House Bill 1622, from Exeter Democrat Linda Haskins, requires additional landfill capacity to be created at the site of existing landfills, if needed, rather than at undisturbed sites.

The remaining two bills saw limited debate.

House Bill 1189, from Rep. Peter Bixby, a Dover Democrat, contains a proposal for a Site Evaluation Committee that would consider proposals for future landfills in light of criteria officials say are not currently part of the review process — like impacts on noise levels, tourism, property values, recreation, traffic, and more. 

The bill would also allow local regulations to preclude the siting of a landfill in a town, while the version of Site Evaluation Committee rules laid out in the Senate’s amendment to HB 707 would not. 

Arguing in favor of sending the bill to interim study, Pearl said the ideas contained within HB 1189 “are likely to be carried forward and used in future legislation, primarily (HB) 707.”

Rochefort said he had supported HB 1189, calling its review process “well written” and comprehensive. Nonetheless, he spoke in support of the motion for interim study, saying that he hoped HB 707 could be amended to better reflect his constituents’ desires for a more robust siting process.

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Conversations on amending the Senate’s proposal for HB 707 are “moving along,” Rochefort said. The motion to send HB 1189 to interim study passed on a voice vote.

Tower said he was disappointed the bill was not passed.

“We were sorry that it ended up in interim study because it was indeed a good bill and it was a bipartisan bill at the same time,” he said. 

The alliance has viewed HB 707 as a threat to local control, particularly in the town of Bethlehem, where a settlement agreement between the town and landfill operator Casella Waste Systems currently prevents that landfill from expanding. Tower said he was apprehensive about moving ahead with language he worries could jeopardize that agreement.

Also discussed on the Senate floor May 7 was House Bill 1478, which would require the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services to revise the set of rules it uses to consider landfill proposals. It includes requiring a hydrogeological review and standards designed to protect nearby water bodies and groundwater.

Rochefort said the current set of rules was insufficient, and partly to blame for the years of back-and-forth discussion in the Legislature regarding landfill siting in New Hampshire.

But the concept of local control was, again, a sticking point in discussions on HB 1478, said Sen. David Watters, a Dover Democrat. 

“What … we’ve been wrestling over so much is just what kind of authority there is, in these local communities, as this review goes forward,” he said. He went on to compare landfills to utilities, saying that they had impacts at the regional and local level that must be balanced.

“There are certain things, I would say, like utilities … where it is a statewide decision, not only a local one,” he said, and called for the Legislature to “address” the question of local control. 

Like Pearl, Watters is a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which issued the “interim study” recommendations. But Watters said he voted against the recommendation for HB 1478 because he considers the hydrogeological standards to be important for public health and the environment.

The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources had recommended interim study for the bill, Pearl said, in part over some definitions and questions about whether its requirements were “clear and enforceable.” He also said, as with HB 1189, that the bill’s ideas would be considered in future work on HB 707.

Pearl said he was engaging with stakeholders in his work on the amended HB 707, and the proposal was moving along. 

Tower said he and others in the North Country were anxiously waiting for the next development in the debate over the Site Evaluation Committee, which has now stretched across two legislative sessions.

“Everybody’s kind of up in the air on this thing, and we’re waiting to see what happens,” he said.