Thanks to an Executive Council decision yesterday, New Hampshire is the new owner of about 150 acres of contaminated Androscoggin riverbed near the North Country paper mill complex. And many state officials say that ownership of dirty land means good things for the Granite State. NHPR?s Dan Gorenstein reports.
Thanks to an Executive Council decision yesterday, New Hampshire is the new owner of about 150 acres of contaminated Androscoggin riverbed near the North Country paper mill complex. And many state officials say that ownership of dirty land means good things for the Granite State. NHPR?s Dan Gorenstein reports.
It?s not just state officials who are excited by the Executive Council?s decision to take, by eminent domain, the contaminated land near the paper mills once owned by Pulp and Paper of America. The mayor of Berlin, the town manager of Gorham, and many other North Country residents were pleased and relieved with the Council?s decision. PACE Union Local President Eddie Debluois knew a lot was riding on it. He feared Fraser Papers would back out of its 30 million dollar offer to buy the closed plants. The company didn?t want to get stuck with also buying polluted land.
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:39 apparently, Fraser needed this to happen. If we couldn?t have cleared this hurdle today, it could have been a deal breaker. I am just thankful to the governor and staff that they could get this done for us.
Governor Shaheen confirmed Deblouis?s assumption. She says if the state didn?t assume responsibility for the contaminated riverbed, the deal with Fraser Papers of Stamford, Connecticut would have been off.
:41 if we are going to have a new owner, we needed to address the issue in a way that assures that the new owner will not be responsible for the pollution.
Department of Environmental Service?s acting-commissioner Dana Bisby says taking over the land will cost the state very little. He says preliminary tests suggest no site cleanup is needed.
1:12 We are pleased to see that while there are PCB?s there, the levels are very low, there is, at this point, there appears to be no risk to human health, and minimal risk to aquatic life.
Bisby notes that if the mill never operated again, the state still would be responsible for any pollution that puts public health and safety at risk. So officials reasoned, the state is not taking on new responsibilities. While the state doesn?t know who?s responsible for the contamination, the Attorney General?s office is expected to conduct an investigation. The Pulp and Paper mills have been closed since late summer, and some 800 people are out of work in Berlin and Gorham. A bankruptcy court hearing on the sale of the mills to Fraser Papers is set for Monday in Chicago.
