Lawmakers press for clearer "aquifer" language, debate monitoring and setbacks in landfill bill

Representative Potenza presented a revised amendment to HB 707 on March 11 and answered questions from committee members and Department staff about wording, numeric thresholds and site-protection measures for new landfills.

The draft drew focused debate over three technical points: the use of the term "aquifer," the numeric groundwater standard (10^-5 versus 10^-4), and a combination of a prescriptive setback with a five‑year time‑of‑travel performance test. Representative Potenza said she kept the 10^-5 standard because "10 to the negative 5 was what how the rules first came out ... they're more protective, and it's where we should be at." She told the committee that two places in the Office of Legislative Services (OLS) text had inconsistent phrasing for aquifer-related protections and that she would ask OLS to make the…