By Rosemary Ford,

NH PBS, Granite State News Collaborative

On this week’s episode of The State We're In, we discuss a proposed asphalt plant near downtown Nashua and the concerns of residents and community members around it. Joining us to talk about the issue are Gabriela Lozada, a reporter from New Hampshire Public Radio who has been following the issue, Heidi Trimarco, a staff attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation, and community organizer Kristy Besada. 

Melanie Plenda:

Kristy, let’s start with you. You are a pastor now, but formerly you were an engineer in the chemical industry. Can you explain to viewers what asphalt is? How is it made? 

Kristy Besada:

Asphalt is something we use all the time. It paves our roads, our driveways, and parking lots. It's also used in making shingles and certain kinds of chemical sealants. The kind of asphalt we're talking about in this application is for paving. Asphalt is a petroleum byproduct, a derivative that gets mixed with binding agents, and sometimes solvents and hardeners, and then gets heated and mixed with crushed stone and sand, sometimes recycled rubber and other aggregate, and then rolled down as roads. So that is the substance that is proposed to be manufactured at the site on Temple Street.

Melanie Plenda:

Kristy, tell us more about the neighborhood and residents' concerns about the project. Why are they worried about this proposal? 

Kristy Besada:

I want to define the community. The neighborhood is of primary concern, the area immediately around – they're very concerned about the potential for pollution and health hazards, and also about traffic. This is a neighborhood where the children all walk to school and will need to walk through the area where the trucks will be going, so that's enormously troubling. But what's also troubling is that we have a major housing scarcity problem in Nashua along with the rest of the state, and there are not other places for these people to move to and still be able to access the services and things they need. This neighborhood is mixed use, there's an enormous presence of supportive agencies for veterans, for immigrants, for people needing food/utility/rental support. So all of these organizations are concerned. And then broader than that are the people farther away who will be the recipients of truck traffic, and just the recognition city-wide that this is bad for all of us.

Melanie Plenda:

Gabriela, what have you heard from residents about this project?  

Gabriela Lozada:

This project is located where many people of color live, there is a big immigrant community – the community that I cover in my beat. There are schools, there are churches, and you have to consider that this is just one mile away from downtown. One of the developers that is remodeling one of the buildings that is just feet away from the plant, he was very worried that people weren't aware that this project was on the table. So when I went to the neighborhood, when I started my reporting, I went through the neighborhood just knocking doors, asking people in Spanish, some people were Brazilians too, asking them if they know that this is happening in City Hall. They didn't know about anything, nobody had reached out to them to give them some information for at least the opportunity to go to the planning board meetings and maybe raise their voices. So I noticed at the beginning of my reporting that there was (and still is) a bit of an information gap between the planning board and the residents there. Then there are health-specific concerns. When I went to the people living around there, some were already complaining about a lot of dust that their fans were collecting or dust going into the houses when the windows are open. And they said some people already have some problems dealing with asthma and other respiratory illnesses. So they are worried these kinds of illnesses would increase and children will be more ill.

Melanie Plenda:

Heidi, what avenues are open to residents who oppose this sort of plant near their homes?

Heidi Trimarco:

The community has really been great in their response to speaking out against this project. We've seen a lot of community members showing up – the planning board has had two public hearings and there was another one scheduled June 15th. So now the best way for the public to get involved is to submit written comments to the planning board, which they can do by June 9th, and then to attend the public hearing on June 15th.

Melanie Plenda:

Heidi, at a March Planning Board meeting, the Conservation Law Foundation talked about a study conducted on a Massachusetts plant owned by the same company. Can you tell us briefly about the study and what it showed? 

Heidi Trimarco:

So the developer has a similar plant in Massachusetts, and we bring that up because you can see that they did a more rigorous error analysis for the Massachusetts plant. That's really needed here. They need to be demonstrating that the plant won't have a negative health impact on the community, and they haven't done that so far. It's very concerning because asphalt involves many chemicals, and there's a big concern that those chemicals will be contaminating the neighborhood. Also, similarly with the Massachusetts plant, the developer has referenced some of the odor concerns. There's a lot of concern that the plant will release these odors that will smell really bad in the community and people will be able to smell it in their homes and in their schools and in their workplaces. We've seen from their Massachusetts plant that they have received a lot of odor complaints from the neighboring community, and I think you can tell that will happen here in Nashua as well in this residential and mixed use neighborhood.

Melanie Plenda:

Kristy, what did residents think of that report?

Kristy Besada:

I think residents felt really vindicated. It's really challenging when you have experts come up on behalf of the developer and tell residents that their concerns are unfounded, that there will not be any difficulties with traffic noise or environmental contaminants, when you know in your heart that that just doesn't pass the common sense test. So having the Conservation Law Foundation input there was really important to them, and also I think helped them to feel a little steadier in the work that they were doing going forward – understanding that there was somebody else who had experts who could provide a different story.

Melanie Plenda:

Gabriela, the report mentions that the plant produces pollutants like benzene, sulfur dioxide, lead, formaldehyde, and chromium. Did Newport say anything about addressing those chemicals and protecting residents? 

Gabriela Lozada:

When I asked for comment, they said that, again, they will do everything to make these plants safe, but they did not mention what kind of pollutants the plant will release and how that could affect the residents in Nashua. In the last hearing, they mentioned that they will use a chemical to neutralize the smell, which is something that the residents are also worried about. It's something that they still have to explain, exactly how this chemical works. Something that caught my attention during the past planning board meeting is that, in their proposal, they said this was going to be a drum asphalt plant, and in the meeting they talked about a batch asphalt plant. So this is something that the planning board still needs to address, and maybe explain what will be the exact difference between these two projects.

Melanie Plenda:

Heidi, where does this process go from there?

Heidi Trimarco:

The community has been outstanding in their opposition to the plant and also in their participation at the public hearing. There've been huge numbers of people who have turned up to oppose the plant, and it's amazing. At these planning board meetings, only the developer’s speaking in favor of the plant – nobody in the community is in favor of locating this asphalt plant in this location. So it's been a wonderful outpouring of opposition against the plant. We'll be staying with the community, depending on where the planning board goes. We do anticipate a decision in June and would ask everybody who has been there, who has voiced their opinion in the past, to come again and to show up on June 15. We would not be surprised if there is litigation after the planning board decision, but we will be there along with the community members united to oppose the plant going forward.

The State We’re in a weekly digital public affairs show is produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.