For years, a former plastics plant near the Souhegan River in Greenville has sat empty.
A local waste hauler, Glen Shaw Junior, wants to turn the spot into a transfer station.
It would be capable of receiving 250 tons of solid waste and recyclables a day.
"Basically we’re going to take trash from trucks, dump them in the facility, go through them, pull out all the recyclables we can, and then transport the trash to an incinerator and recycle the stuff we can."
Shaw says the station –called Pioneer Point - would serve nine towns in the region, including pick-ups in five Massachusetts towns.
Shaw still needs to get his solid waste permit from the Department of Environmental Services.
But the company next door to the site, Pilgrim Foods, is leading the effort to prevent that from happening.
Andrew Serrell is a lawyer for Pilgrim Foods, which makes mustard, vinegar, and apple juice.
He argues the transfer station violates state environmental laws.
"the most significant of which is the 250 foot setback that’s established in both the state’s shoreland protection act and the rivers management and protection act and both those statutes establish that new solid waste facilities of this nature cannot be located within 250 feet of a protected river."
And the Souhegan is a protected river.
The aquifer running nearby provides drinking water for Merrimack, Milford, and Wilton.
Pilgrim Foods General Manager Charles Santach worries that the transfer station will pollute the river.
“We’re all for recycling but it’s in the wrong location, to put a facility like this that plans on bringing in trash from five towns in Massachusetts and four towns in New Hampshire, I mean this is going to be a very big regional dump”
But transfer station owner Glen Shaw says there won’t be any trash or pollutants ending up in the river.
Any solid waste processing will be done inside… and only a portion of the Pioneer Point building lies within 250 feet of the river.
"the facility can be within the 250 foot setback but you can’t process trash or solid waste within the 250 foot setback, so I had to redesign the building to put it on the other side to meet all codes"
The Department of Environmental Services agrees.
Laura Weit is with the Department’s rivers and lakes program.
She says the 250 foot buffer requirement wasn’t meant for reuse of an existing site.
“It is a new solid waste facility but has been used for other things in the past, as long as the portion of the facility that’s used for solid waste is outside of the 250 feet we don’t have a problem”
At a recent public hearing on the project’s permit, every Greenville resident in attendance said they support the transfer station.
Right now, they have to travel 12 miles to Wilton to take care of their trash and recyclables.
Planning Board Chair Ted DeWinter says it’s costing Greenville close to 80-thousand dollars.
"Every town in New Hampshire either has to have its own recycling facility or must belong to a recycling center, so we cannot really leave the recycling center with it’s 80-thousand dollar a year bill, unless we have something to substitute for it and this would do it."
DeWinter says the privately run facility would not only save 80-thousand dollars, but generate a tax base.
Based on the current evaluation of the building it could bring in well over 25-thousand dollars.
A reassessment would bring in more, and the town would also gain revenue from vehicle registrations on all the trucks at the facility.
Resident Rick Miller lives just to the south of the Pioneer building.
"if you just got your tax bill you know what we’re looking at and man do I ever want a rateable in that pioneer plastics building, and I would like to see the facility go ahead because I trust the shaw’s."
But Pilgrim Foods officials also came to that meeting.
And they brought in lawyers and hydrogeologists to convince residents how easily pollution could contaminate the nearby aquifer.
But residents weren’t convinced.
Again Ted DeWinter with the town planning board.
“One thing that bothers me is here we’re looking at thousands of dollars worth of attorneys, disruptions in our planning board meetings what the hell is this of damage to Pilgrim Foods and Dutch mustard we have not heard one thing about how this is going to damage them and why their hiring all the attorneys and geologists and people to deprive of us of something that Greenville desperately needs and wants (applause..)”
Pilgrim Foods and their lawyers have been fighting the transfer station proposal since early February – in the past month that effort has intensified.
Greenville resident Brenda Falter doesn’t understand why.
"I don’t know why they’re trying to stop it, I don’t know if they just don’t want neighbors, if they’ve got stuff going on there they don’t want seen, who knows, but I do know that I live within a mile of them and I know you can’t sit out on your porch on at night because the stench is unbelievable.”
And that’s part of the irony of this story.
The company that’s complaining about potential environmental violations has had plenty of its own.
Pilgrim Foods’ General Manager Charles Santach admits the company has had problems.
“we spent a lot of time and a lot of money, over a million dollars upgrading our facility.. . we do not want to see our hard work go down the drain by having a facility like this next to us.”
The upgrades stemmed from a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency for clean air and clean water act violations.
Pilgrim Foods agreed to pay 190-thousand dollars in fines for spills and leaks from its storage tank farm.
Vinegar, oil. fuel from vehicles, and other pollutants leaked into a brook that feeds into the Souhegan.
Pilgrim Foods also had to pay a 10-thousand dollar settlement with New Hampshire environmental officials for clean air violations.
Santach says given that, he’s afraid that pollution from a transfer station next door might be blamed on his company.
He says he also has to worry about the company’s image.
“we have people that come in all the time to inspect us and competition is fierce these days, and we don’t want someone to say, the facility is right next to a garbage dump do we really want to do business with someone who has the potential of maybe rats coming into their facility or contamination.”
Santach says Pilgrim Foods has cleaned up their act and addressed any environmental issues.
They’re now dredging lagoons of processed waste on the property.
DES officials are trying to determine why they’re finding high levels of arsenic near the lagoons.
Meanwhile DES has a few weeks to decide whether to approve the transfer station’s solid waste permit.
If approved, lawyers for Pilgrim Foods stand ready to appeal.
For NHPR news, I’m Amy Quinton.
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