Related: Portsmouth could face $5.9M in future Coakley cleanup costs
“PORTSMOUTH — The taxpayers of Portsmouth have already been assessed $107,102 for their share of paying for half the cost so a developer can run a municipal water line to a new development in Greenland.
City taxpayers have paid the money to the Coakley Landfill Group even as city officials – and lawyers and consultants hired by the group – continue to say the landfill poses no threat to public health or safety.
The CLG reached a deal in 2016 to pay as much as $200,000 to reimburse developer Eric Chinburg for his cost to run a water line to a new development being built near the Superfund cleanup site. City Attorney Robert Sullivan, who is also chairman of CLG executive committee, previously said the CLG agreed to pay Chinburg – in part by billing Portsmouth, North Hampton and Newington taxpayers – because the developer ‘expressed the concept of litigation’ over concerns about contaminated water.
But the CLG has steadfastly refused to run municipal water to other homeowners living around the landfill in North Hampton and Greenland. Former Assistant Mayor Jim Splaine said the refusal of the CLG and city to help other homeowners concerned that toxins leaching from the landfill will contaminate their drinking wells is ‘really sad’…
Tests on groundwater in monitoring wells at the site found PFOS chemical levels as high as 1,108 ppt, according to the DES and EPA, and 1,4-dioxane over its health advisory level. The EPA’s health advisory for PFAS chemicals is 70 ppt. PFAS chemicals and 1,4-dioxane are suspected carcinogens and, as emerging contaminants, have extended the time the CLG must monitor the site. PFOS chemicals have been found in the surface water at Berry’s Brook at levels much higher than the EPA level for groundwater.
Testing at private residential wells have all tested below the level…
State Rep. Mindi Messmer, D-Rye, said environmental advocates question the CLG’s decision to pay for part of the cost of the water line to Chinburg’s development while not extending it farther along Breakfast Hill Road.
‘Literally 100 feet from (the development) there are wells across the street in the Stone Meadow Way area,’ Messmer said. ‘The people in the September Drive area have elevated concentrations above what other states would let you drink.’ ”
Read the full article by Jeff McMenemy.