CONCORD — The House Environment and Agriculture Committee is recommending an amendment to House Bill 1620 that would impose a moratorium on the issuance of new landfill permits until 2028 to give the Department of Environmental Services time to finalize new solid waste rules and the state to determine how well other solid waste legislation under consideration is working.
As introduced, the bill would have delayed new permits until 2031, three years before DES predicts any landfill capacity problems.
Wayne Morrison of the North Country Alliance for Balanced Change testified that even the 2034 date quoted in the DES biennial report “is not a date that’s really meaningful” because it assumes that the landfill operated by Waste Management is going to shut down at that time.
“That’s not going to happen,” he said. “They are going to expand and they’re going to continue to run the largest landfill in the state. Twenty thirty-four is likely to be 2044 or 2054, depending on the capacity that they add at that time.”
Morrison also noted that the DES had not updated its Solid Waste Plan for 19 years, while surrounding states forged ahead with their own planning.
“While we were essentially ignoring the solid waste problem, other states were taking all kinds of actions that has made us very attractive to the private operators in the solid waste business,” Morrison said. “Our laws are behind the times and they are more lax than our neighboring states.”
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to By The Way to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.