New Hampshire Senate defeats bills to block new landfills

A number of bills aimed at blocking new landfills were defeated in the New Hampshire State Senate this week, reports the New Hampshire Union Leader.

Opposition from environmental activists to a past proposal from Rutland, Vermont-based Casella Waste Systems to build a landfill in Dalton, New Hampshire, near Forest Lake State Park sparked many of the bills that attracted bipartisan support in the House of Representatives.

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Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Kevin Avard, R-Nashua, said the state Department of Environmental Services (DES) raised financial and resource concerns about a bill that would limit new landfill ownership to only the state or local municipality. The Senate voted without debate to send that measure to interim study, which will require it start over as a new bill in 2025.

Bills that would have prevented any new landfill permits from being issued until 2028 and that would have limited any new landfills from taking more than 15 percent of their trash from non-New Hampshire sources were also defeated.

The Senate did pass one waste-related bill that states a town master plan may include a section about its work on solid waste reduction.