Newton tightens up water regulations
By Jarret Bencks
jbencks@eagletribune.com
NEWTON — Any company or individual applying for a water franchise or personal well will now have to go through the town's Planning Board before submitting an application to the state.
Planners on Tuesday unanimously approved new rules aimed at giving the town more authority over its water supply and more notice upon submissions of water franchise requests.
The rules, submitted by board alternate and Rep. Mary Allen, restrict companies or individuals from trucking or piping water from Newton to be used elsewhere.
The new rules also require any organization seeking a water franchise in town to notify the Planning Board. If it does not approve the water franchise, the request could still go to the state, but the Planning Board would notify the Department of Environmental Services of its disapproval, Allen said.
This summer, Hampstead Area Water Co. submitted a request to the state for a 642-acre franchise in Newton to supply water to the Sargent Woods development and nearby homes.
The company reduced its proposal to just the 66 acres the development sits on after a public hearing in July, where many residents and officials voiced their objections. The scaled-back proposal for water withdrawal was approved by the Public Utilities Commission on Aug. 8.
Atkinson residents also have taken action in an attempt to protect the town's water supply. Voters overwhelmingly approved new ordinances that adopted the town's water withdrawal ordinance as a health ordinance, and put restrictions on water withdrawals in town during a Special Town Meeting earlier this month.
Selectmen and Planning Board members in Atkinson have objected to the new ordinances, asserting they are illegal and could bring the town into a long legal battle.
Newton Planning Board member Jim Doggett said he believes the rules in his town are within state regulations. "If you read our set of rules, they're very simple in language," Doggett said. "They are in our regulations and I think the Planning Board is willing to defend them."
Atkinson-Factor says,
Nice article about Newtons fight with the HAWC, and how about our town officals here in Atkinson? From what i have seen with Fred Childs actions and his public quotes on the matter, he has no intention of fighting any water withdrawal from the HAWC. His behavior reminds me of the country of France back in WW11. Even after public outcry at the last selectmans meeting from concerned residents about the lack of interest in the selectmans actions on the water issue, the selectman still havn't done anything at the state level to back up what the residents voted on in early sept.
Our Planning board is against this fight over our water also, so them sticking up for what we overwhelming voted for is slim.... Harold Morse sits on the planing board and also is part of the HWAC ( Now that is a conflict of interest isn't it? ). That reason alone tells me why the planing board is against the water fight.
Atkinson should be the leading town fighting this battle, but our officals are doing absolutly nothing. All they can say is, " We will take it under advisement".
Monday, September 29, 2008
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BRAVO to the Newton Planning Board and to the Newton Board of Selectmen who are standing with the Newton Planning Board and with the people of Newton in trying to protect Newton's groundwater from being "trucked or piped" out of Newton to other towns.
The Newton Planning Board just adopted as a Planning Board regulation the same town rule adopted by the Atkinson voters in our 2007 and 2008 Special Town Meetings.
The difference between the Atkinson and Newton Planning Boards is so stark. Because of the Atkinson selectmen's irresponsible conflict of interest appointments to the Atkinson planning Board, we have a board chaired by a developer (Killam), run by the president of the Hampstead Area Water Company (Morse), and other members who pander to those special interests
(the other members led by DiMaggio).
This do-nothing Board has done absolutely NOTHING to protect Atkinson's groundwater and has, in stead, constantly publicly argued for the interests of the water company.
DiMaggio and Killam have been so long entrenched on the Board that they've been caught up in their own power and egos, and have forgotten whose interest they are supposed to be working for. They should not be re-appointed and, in fact, should be removed as soon as possible and replaced by residents who represent the people. Neither of them has done anything for the town-- and have only actively and loudly spoken for the interests of the water company. Just because they have gotten re-appointments in the past for their betrayal of the townspeople does not mean that they are entitled to future automatic re-appointments.
Harold's Morse's membership on the Board while also being the head of the water company which the selectmen keep tooting will engage in possible legal action against the town, is outrageous. He should be removed immediately.
Newton's State Rep. Mary Allen is actively representing the wishes of the people of Newton in protecting their groundwater from being sold out of town. She was actively involved in getting the Newton Planning Board to adopt regulations which forbid Newton water from being moved and sold out of town.
What have Atkinson's two State Reps done as far as representing the townspeople's very clearly expressed wishes concerning protecting our groundwater from being sold out of town?
NOTHING -- after the first Special Town meeting- 2007.
NOTHING -- after the second Special
Town Meeting - 2008.
Garrity and Winchell were and continue to be useless.
State reps from other towns have joined together to co-sponsor and submit bills to the N.H. legislature to give towns more control over their groundwater from water companies.
Have Garrity and Winchell joined in these efforts as co-sponsors? NO !! They continue to be do-nothings.
Now, in Debbie DeSimone we're going to have a new State Rep replacing Winchell. Let's see what she does -- whether she's an advocate for her townspeople's wishes or whether she turns out to be deadwood like our two previous legislators.
Time will tell for sure, and great comments....
You would think our reps would be joining in "Loudly" with the others. Power in numbers i say, and also makes them heard more clearly. But they have not done so. 2-3rds of the voters want this done, and because of that vote, those reps from Atkinson should be running to join the others.
Shame on the Atkinson Board of Selectmen and DiMaggio and Killam of the Atkinson Planning Board.
While the Newton Selectmen and Planning Board were standing with the people of Newton, the Atkinson selectmen (also,include Sapia for his disgusting continual betrayal of the people, even while not a selectman) and Killam and DiMaggio were actively trying to make sure that Atkinson would lose any legal action against the town by the water company.
When the townspeople submitted a petitioned warrant article to strengthen the Water Withdrawal Ordinance against any legal challenge, the selectmen, (including jerk Sapia) Killam and DiMaggio spoke out against that strengthening article being passed. DiMaggio made a fool of himself repeatedly trying to amend the article into being meaningless.
If any of the before-mentioned gave a damn about our town, they would have wanted the town to win against any legal action against us. They would have wanted to strengthen the water withdrawal ordinance so it would stand up in court against challenge.
The fact that they were so desparately opposing the strengthening of the ordinance proves without a shadow of a doubt that they wanted the ordinance to
be defeated in any court challenge.
They made it clear that on any legal challenge, they wanted the water company to win so that they could say, "see, we were right." Their egos have put themselves solely with the water company against their own town and townspeople.
Get Killam and DiMaggio off the planning board. I'm sure the water company would put them on their board of directors for all of their selling out the town.
Thanks for the heads up, if this is true, that would be very interesting for the public to know who they have as a selectman is a felon? So for everyone reading this , this is not confirmed as of yet.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but not only are Newton's new site plan regulations contrary to RSA 485-C:20, which says that only RSA 485-C:21 can be used to regulate water withdrawals, they are not authorized by RSA 674:44, which says what a planning board can require when reviewing site plans.
Ia anyone surprised that the Danville know-it-all Curt Springer who's un-listened to in his own town, has now added Newton to the towns whose affairs he's butting into.
Plaistow has banned him from their blog, Atkinson residents are disgusted by his constantly interferring into Atkinson's business and election issues, so now, he's decided to use our Atkinson Factor to butt his unwanted self into Newton's town business by telling Newton's town government officials what they can and can not do and of course, telling them that they're wrong for daring to have a different opinion than his own.
Springer should be banned from the Atkinson Factor since he is not a resident and because all he ever does is use our blogs to constantly criticize and arrogantly tell towns that they're all wrong for having opinions different from his own.
Springer's attitude is that the world revolves around him and his opinions. His know-it-all attitude is offensive to local towns. His own town has tuned him out so now he's contantly butting into the affairs of other towns.
Springer, get a life of your own that doesn't involve your intruding yourself constantly into the affairs of towns which want nothing to do with you.
Ok then...due to our last response, there is a poll on the Factor that will determine Mr Springer's fate on the Atkinson Factor.
The state law is very clear. Sorry you don't like it. Nobody ever refutes my points because they can't.
The world doesn't revolve around me. In NH government it revolves around the legislature and what they want to do, not the towns. You can attack me all you like and it won't change anything.
The state laws are the same whether you live in Atkinson, Danville, Newton, or Plaistow.
There is no role for the town governments in the regulation of large groundwater withdrawals other than to participate in the state process defined by RSA 485-C:21. You can't use health ordinances and you can't use zoning laws.
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