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Candia conservation members push to test old town dump after consultant flags contaminants
Summary
Conservation members urged the Board of Selectmen to pursue testing of an old town dump as a brownfield; Stantec project manager David Allwine told the board monitoring has found arsenic, manganese and PFAS in some wells and advised the town to consult NH DES and Southern New Hampshire Planning about grant eligibility and next steps.
David Allwine, a Stantec project manager who said he has monitored the former town landfill for more than a decade, told the Board of Selectmen that prior work capped roughly 3,500–4,000 cubic yards of ash and that the site has continued groundwater monitoring under an NH DES groundwater management permit. "We do have groundwater impacts that we have found in there," Allwine said, listing arsenic, manganese and PFAS as contaminants detected in some monitoring wells, and noting surface-water samples taken from the nearby river have not shown significant results to date.
Conservation member (speaker 9) proposed asking Southern New Hampshire Planning Commission to use its EPA brownfields assessment grant to test the old dump at no cost to the town for assessment work. The conservation member said those grants typically pay for assessment and planning but not guaranteed mitigation. "They will pay for all of the testing," the conservation member said, but cautioned that mitigation funding is not guaranteed.
Allwine cautioned the board that because the town operated the landfill, the municipality itself may not be eligible for some assessment or cleanup funds that exclude parties responsible for the contamination. "Because this is a landfill that was operated by the town for so many years, the town itself would not be eligible to get those funds to do an assessment," he said, recommending the board speak with both Southern New Hampshire Planning and the DES project coordinator to understand options and eligibility.
Board members expressed interest but concern about potential costs and tax impacts if cleanup were necessary. One member asked whether, if the site were remediated, the town could repurpose the parcel; the conservation member proposed turning it into conservation land to create a larger contiguous conserved tract. Allwine estimated that disposal and full removal of ash would likely be "hundreds of thousands of dollars," and suggested a phased approach: obtain assessment data first, then pursue mitigation planning and grant opportunities if contamination warrants further action.
The board did not commit to a course of action but agreed to follow up with the planning commission and DES for more information and to consider an informational meeting to learn how a brownfields assessment would proceed and what costs might follow.
