New Hampshire agreed to build a wastewater treatment plant at the Powder Mill fish hatchery that has polluted the Merrymeeting River for years.
The treatment plant is owned by the state. According to The Union Leader, The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), sued the state Fish and Game Department over the hatchery four years ago and has now announced that it has entered into a consent decree with Fish and Game and the U.S. EPA over the pollution.
“This is a big win,” said Tom Irwin, vice president of CLF for New Hampshire, reported The Union Leader. “The state has to dramatically reduce the total phosphorus going into the river.”
According to The Union Leader, The CLF has been battling the Fish and Game Department for years in federal court over the plant's river pollution. The EPA filed the consent decree upon intervention into the lawsuit.
The hatchery discharges the wastewater into the Merrymeeting River, which flows into Lake Winnipesaukee at Alton Bay.
According to Irwin, the decree gives New Hampshire Fish and Game until Dec. 31, 2025 to begin operations of a treatment plant, which must meet the standards of the federal Clean Water Act, reported The Union Leader.
Scott Mason, the executive director of Fish and Game, said such a plant could cost approximately $85 million. So far, a consultant has been hired to begin plans for the plant. Notably, New Hampshire has invested $55 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to build two new fish hatcheries.
“It will certainly cost millions of dollars. How many millions, I don’t know,” Irwin said, reported The Union Leader.
According to the consent decree, Fish and Game must also address the impacts of the phosphorous already deposited into the river and work on a clean-up plan, reported The Union Leader.
Attorney General John Formella, whose office defended Fish and Game in the suit, said:
“The announcement of a negotiated consent decree with the United States memorializes the State of New Hampshire’s commitment to continue its significant progress over the last several years to reduce phosphorus discharges at the Powder Mill Fish Hatchery and achieve compliance with its lowest-in-the-nation phosphorus concentration limit imposed by EPA in late 2020 to protect water quality in the Merrymeeting River,” the statement reads.
