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 language uniform.

Department of Environmental Services staff warned the committee that the single word "aquifer" can be read very broadly. Mike Wimsatt, director of the Waste Management Division at New Hampshire DES, told the panel that "virtually all of New Hampshire is underlain by an aquifer of some sorts," and cautioned that using only the term "aquifer" could be interpreted to forbid siting anywhere in the state. Wimsatt suggested that references to "drinking water wells" are more precise when the statutory goal is to protect potable water supplies.

Committee members also discussed how a two‑part protection—both a prescriptive setback and a five‑year groundwater time‑of‑travel criterion—functions on the ground. Representative Potenza said the 1,500‑foot setback replaces an older 500‑foot rule and is smaller than an earlier 3,000‑foot proposal; she said the new map leaves substantially more of the state available for siting than the old map. She said both approaches were kept because a surface spill behaves differently than a subsurface plume and the two protections serve different failure modes.

Members pressed DES on monitoring and response requirements. Potenza argued that an on‑site, live employee is necessary because automated dialer systems can fail and a missed alarm may allow a weekend spill to go undiscovered. Wimsatt said DES favors robust electronic alarms and automated notifications to responsible facility staff, and questioned whether a 24‑hour on‑site employee would always be the most effective use of resources: "It is not clear to us that that would necessarily result [in better detection]," he said, noting the cost and the possibility that an on‑site person might be a security guard without operational knowledge.

Representative Gruber and others urged a layered approach—technology plus human oversight—so that alarms are backed by a reliable local response plan.

Next steps: Representative Potenza said she will send clarified language to OLS (particularly to make "aquifer" references consistent with protections for drinking‑water wells) and will bring outstanding issues to the committee's work session next week for further drafting and a potential vote. The subcommittee did not take a final vote on HB 707 on March 11.

Ending: The chair scheduled follow‑up work and said the committee has one week before it must act on the revised amendment; members asked DES to review the "significant history / repeated serious violations" language before final action.