Here are the latest developments in our fight to stop Casella Waste Management from siting a massive 180-acre dump in Dalton next to Forest Lake and Forest Lake State Park – along with what you can do to help ensure this dump never threatens our quality of life.
CASELLA’S “NO STRINGS OFFER” TO DALTON GENERATES PUSHBACK
On Jan. 13, Dalton resident and “Vote No on Zoning” advocate Don Mooney approached the Dalton Select Board with the offer of a “no strings attached” gift of $50,000 to $100,000 from the personal philanthropic fund of Casella CEO John Casella. Mooney made the offer after communicating with a Casella official.
Not surprisingly, there was skepticism that the offer was100% philanthropic since it comes in the middle of Casella’s attempts to plant a dump in Dalton.
The next day brought a sort of “clarification” from John Casella, who said “We do not communicate donations or other offers of financial assistance to communities through individual citizens because it can result in confusion as it did here.” He didn’t withdraw or deny the offer, though.
Save Forest Lake founder Jon Swan filed a complaint against Casella with the NH Attorney General for “improper gifting” and “influence peddling.” Said Swan: “The first thing that comes to mind is this certainly seems like a conflict of interest, and some could question it as almost being an improper payment to the town, in essence for a favor.”
Then came a counter-offer from Whitefield resident (and NCABC board member) Eliot Wessler who offered to personally match any Casella donation up to $100,000. In a Jan.16 letter to the editor of the Caledonian Record, Wessler said “All Casella needs to do is pledge not to build a landfill in the town of Dalton.”
It turns out that even thinking about accepting the money wouldn’t be easy for Dalton. Select Board Chair Jo Beth Dudley says that accepting more than $10,000 in unanticipated revenue would trigger a public hearing and questions for town legal counsel and the NH Municipal Association.
What you can do: Write a letter to the editor of the Caledonian Record (news@caledonianrecord.com), Coos County Democrat or Littleton Courier (tara@salmonpress.news) with your take on this “offer.”
WHITEFIELD RESIDENTS COLLECT SIGNATURES FOR ANTI-DUMP WARRANT ARTICLE
If it’s passed at the Mar. 10 Whitefield Town Meeting, the warrant article would declare the town’s opposition to the Dalton landfill, citing potential negatives like Forest Lake degradation, heavy truck traffic and falling property values.
What you can do: If you’re a registered Whitefield voter and want to sign the petition for the warrant article, contact Sarah Doucette at sdoucette58@gmail.com. But please act fast: deadline for submitting the petition is Tues. Feb. 4. If you aren’t able to sign the petition, be sure to vote for the warrant article at Town Meeting on Tues. Mar. 10.
DUMP CONTROL BILLS ADVANCE
Thanks to bipartisan work by NH legislators plus the Forest Lake Association, Save Forest Lake and NCABC, two pieces of dump control legislation will be up for a vote in the NH House this year. The bills – now being marked up in committee — aim to enhance local control and protect the NH environment from dump negatives like foul odors, wetlands and water quality degradation, scavengers, noise, heavy truck traffic and garbage trucked in from out of state.
House Bill 1319 prohibits new landfills near state parks, national parks and US Department of Agriculture forest land.
House Bill 1422 puts a moratorium on building new privately-owned for-profit landfills and expanding existing ones until the state can study the creation of municipal waste districts to handle NH’s waste needs. What you can do: As soon as the bills are released from committee we’ll ask your help in writing letters to your legislators. We’ll provide language and fact sheets to help you in your letter-writing.
CASELLA LEACHATE SPILL
A recent spill of a potentially dangerous soup of landfill liquids and chemicals is another reminder of how dumps put local communities at risk.
At 3 am on Dec. 27, a tanker truck full of leachate from the Casella dump in Coventry, VT collided with a garbage truck on Route 5 near the Black River. The result was an 8,000 gallon spill that almost emptied the tanker and contaminated soil off Route 5. Luckily the leachate doesn’t yet seem to have reached nearby well heads or the Black River, which drains into Lake Memphremagog, the water source for 175,000 Canadians. There’s a Vermont State Police investigation ongoing.
What you can do: Write a letter to the editor of the Caledonian Record (news@caledonianrecord.com), Coos County Democrat or Littleton Courier (tara@salmonpress.news) noting that this type of spill could easily happen in Whitefield, Dalton, Twin Mountain or other local towns.
FOREST LAKE WATER QUALITY RANKS HIGH
Comprehensive water quality testing in Forest Lake in late 2019 found the lake is essentially free of chemical or bacterial contamination. The tests covered dozens of different chemical contaminants like heavy metals and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
Tests were conducted to establish a baseline for water quality in the lake and to counteract a disinformation campaign about the lake’s water quality. In its effort to build a dump next to the lake, Casella has implied that the lake is already contaminated so more contamination from a dump won’t matter. The tests were conducted by an independent lab with costs underwritten by the Forest Lake Association and NCABC.
In addition to the new chemical testing, NCABC analyzed 20 years of data on bacterial contamination collected by the state of NH. The data show that Forest Lake has never had a problem with cyanobacteria and that E.coli readings are sufficiently low that the lake is now on the state’s short list of water bodies that don’t require annual testing.
WHAT’S NEXT?
We’ll send you regular updates about the fight against the Dalton dump – and what you can do to help make sure no dump threatens our quality of life. We welcome your contribution to our efforts to safeguard Forest Lake and the North Country.