The state Senate has passed a bill that brings dozens of Seacoast communities one step closer to pumping their waste water into the Atlantic Ocean.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Dan Gorenstein reports.
New Hampshire is set to spend about one million dollars studying whether 44 Seacoast communities should send their waste into the Atlantic.
The Senate bill allows communities to form the Great Bay Sewer District.
The district's treatment plants would send the collected waste water to the ocean.
Rochester Representative Sandra Keans supports the concept.
She says towns in the Great Bay area are facing increasing environmental regulations.
And she says those are very expensive.
8:39 We spent 25 million on a plant that opened four years ago. If we had to come back and spend another 15 million dollars, I don't know if our rate payers could afford it.
Keans, who is also sits on the City Council, estimates in Rochester a family of four pays anywhere between 8-900 dollars a year, just for sewage services.
She hopes the plan would give communities a 10-20 year reprieve.
And during that time, she says, science may find a less expensive way to capture the pollution from waste water.
Keans, however, readily acknowledge sending sewage into the ocean isn't a forever solution.
17:19 I think in one way you are changing, rather than spending money on research and technology to figure out how to not put it into bodies of water, period, you are moving the environmental impact from one location, close to shore, out further into the ocean. And obviously, after a number of years, that's got to have an impact.
Just the thought of pumping sewage into the ocean is not very appealing.
But UNH microbiologist Steve Jones says waste water is cleaner than you might think.
19:39 what comes out of the pipe is water, basically. There might be color to it, it might smell a little bit. Depending on the treatment of it you could have very clean water coming out, or less celan water, but none of it is going to be brown and murky.
But Jones says, the fact that much of the water is quite clean poses a significant question.
He wonders about the impact of taking this water out of the region's aquifer.
He says if this waste water is a major component of area streams, it could reduce the amount available to communities.
Clearly another potential downside is the impact the sewage might have in the ocean.
At the same time, what ever pollution is sent to the ocean, isn't being dumped in local rivers, streams and bays.
Shep Croner, who sat on the study Commission that considered the sewage pipe project sees a possible human impact coming in the form of increased development.
Croner says installing a sewer pipeline would remove what he calls a natural barrier to growth and development.
Right now, Croner says, many communities require homes be built on lots big enough to absorb septic tank discharge.
If the pipe comes in, he fears that may change.
12:04 over time, when that infrastructure is put in place, you are going to have interested parties, probably more or less home builders and developers say we've run out of land, let's change the equation so we can reduce the lot size requirements, and then you start to see higher density homes built on those old lots.
Rochester Representative Sandra Keans doesn't disagree the project could result in more development.
But says since growth is going to come regardless, this way is better.
14:41 I think if you are putting people on a sewer system, that is the kind of growth you do want rather than having people go out into the farm land and have a pasture divided up into 23 house lots b/c then you are putting septic right into the ground.
The Department of Environmental Services expects to announce the engineers that will conduct the one million dollar feasibility study in the coming days.
For NHPR News, I'm DG.
