Wastewater

New Hampshire’s federal lawmakers want a bigger cut of a new national grant program to address sewage discharges in local rivers.

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The state is trying to reassure environmental advocates in the wake of a controversial federal decision to ease pollution enforcement during the pandemic.

Officials in Rochester are investigating what they say is illegal oil dumping into the city’s sewer system.

City officials say they first detected oil in the sewer system last November, then again every month since February.

Director of City Services John Storer says it seems to be dumped on semi-regular basis and is most likely waste oil – something the city offers to properly dispose of for free.

New Hampshire is receiving more than $160,000 to keep waste water from boats out of the state’s lakes and shores.

The funding announcement was made Friday by the U.S. Department of the Interior, which is distributing $32 million nationwide through the Clean Vessel Act.

Under state law, boats aren’t allowed to discharge their holding tanks in any inland bodies of water, or within three miles of the New Hampshire seacoast.

The Exchange discussed New Hampshire's infrastructure issues over a series of shows this year. The American Society of Civil Engineers released their 2017 report card in March, giving New Hampshire a C- overall, with further grades for specific categories, including roads, dams, and drinking water.

Read on for highlights and links to each show, and also for links to additional coverage of New Hampshire's infrastructure. 

State and federal officials plan to release dye into the Oyster River this week in an effort to study how water flows from a sewage plant along the river.

Beginning Tuesday night, officials with state and federal environmental agencies will inject a reddish dye into the town of Durham’s wastewater treatment plant for about 12 hours.

The experiment is designed to shed light on how wastewater flows from the plant. It could lead to new boundaries for where shellfish harvesting is allowed.

Chris Nash is with the state Department of Environmental Services.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has released their 2017 report card on New Hampshire’s infrastructure -- and the state is far from the honor roll.

  In a letter to new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, Governor Chris Sununu complains that federal regulations on storm water runoff are too burdensome for some New Hampshire towns.

The regulations, known as MS4 permits, are meant to reduce the amount of pollutants that get discharged into bodies of water via storm water runoff from developed areas.

They would require dozens of towns in New Hampshire to make significant investments in their storm water drainage systems to comply.

Too often, says civil engineer Fred McNeill, it takes a disaster – sinkholes swallowing cars or dam bursts flooding communities -- to get the attention of officials and others who fund the underpinnings of wastewater treatment and dam infrastructure.  

Officials overseeing the state’s dams and wastewater treatment plants say they’re heartened by calls for more investment in infrastructure by Governor Sununu and President Trump.

But they're also alarmed by the Trump Administration’s proposed cuts to the EPA.

Speaking on The Exchange, Fred McNeill, Chief Engineer at Manchester’s Environmental Protection Division, says the EPA funds several state positions that help maintain and improve the city’s one thousand miles of underground water infrastructure.  McNeill is concerned these jobs may now be eliminated.

A group of residents in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, have sued the city, state, and federal government, saying an upgraded wastewater treatment plant under construction lacks the capacity to handle sewer needs.

The Portsmouth Herald reports the group filed the suit in federal court in Concord on Wednesday under provisions of the Clean Water Act. It also believes the Peirce Island plant is using the wrong technology because the city wanted to build it there, rather than at Pease International Tradeport.

A federal judge in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, has rejected a request to delay ruling on a deal to upgrade the Peirce Island wastewater plant.

The Portsmouth Herald reports that the tentative deal between Portsmouth and the federal Environmental Protection Agency spells out the type of sewer plant the city must build on the island and its timeline for construction.

The Environmental Protection Agency has asked a federal judge to approve a deal reached with the city of Portsmouth about an $83.4 million plan to upgrade the existing Peirce Island wastewater treatment plant.

The Portsmouth Herald reports that the agreement, called the second consent decree, lays out the timetable for building the new plant. It has to be entered by the court before it can go into effect.

Representatives of five New Hampshire towns say the Environmental Protection Agency is imposing wastewater limits on the Great Bay that are a financial burden. They made their case to two members of the Congressional Committee on Oversight at a field hearing held in Exeter Monday. While towns and regulators haggle over the cost of improving waste water treatment, time may be running out for the Great Bay estuary.

A Contentious Issue