Joyal: Great Bay cleanup could cost Dover hundreds of millions – Foster’s Daily Democrat

DOVER The draft Clean Water permit for the Great Bay Estuary from the Environmental Protection Agency could cost the city of Dover hundreds of millions of dollars to meet, City Manager Michael Joyal told the City Council Wednesday.

This is not just Dover, every community that has a wastewater plant that discharges into Great Bay will have to meet it, Joyal said during a workshop meeting of the City Council.

In a change of approach from the past, the EPA is calling for a dozen communities around Great Bay to reduce the amounts of nitrogen going into the waters, rather than focusing on one community at a time.

The permit allows the communities to keep nitrogen levels from their wastewater plants at current levels.

But the draft permit then requires the communities follow a 23-year state plan that calls for a 45% reduction from so-called non-point source pollution, like stormwater runoff.

Joyal said city staffers feel the amount of non-point nitrogen reduction the EPA is asking for is unnecessarily restrictive, not supported by science and may not be realistically achievable.

He repeated when asked that reaching the permit levels over 20 years could cost Dover ratepayers and taxpayers hundreds of millions.

John Storer, the citys Community Services Director, agreed, and added that if they are forced to comply with the EPAs new permit, city businesses could be facing substantial increases in their sewer costs.

He estimated that Liberty Mutual could see an increase of $30,000 while Wentworth-Douglass Hospital could face a $50,000 increase.

When we met with DES (the state Department of Environmental Services) and EPA they admitted we never said it was going to be easy, Storer said. They also suggested you have to get on to private property to reduce non-point nitrogen pollution.

Joyal stated that could mean trying to compel private businesses to install advanced septic systems and regulate the way stormwater is handled on private property.

He also noted the city has no way to regulate the amount of nitrogen that is used, for example, in fertilizers to try to cut down on nitrogen that ends up in Great Bay.

We cant do any of that locally, that all has to be done by the state of New Hampshire, Joyal said.

Both Joyal and Storer noted that Dover has made significant investments to its wastewater treatment plant, which has reduced the amount of nitrogen going into Great Bay by 70 percent since 2014.

In addition, DES in 2014, 2016 and 2018 did not point to nitrogen as one of the causes of impairment to Great Bay, Joyal said.

He and others encouraged residents and business owners to attend a public hearing the EPA is hosting on the proposed permit on Feb. 19.

The meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. and will be held at DES office at the Pease International Tradeport in Portsmouth.

City Councilor John OConnor called the issue very serious, which could end up costing the city $200 million.

I dont know what we would do, all the communities, because the financial impact, the potential impact to taxpayers ... if this comes to fruition, this is going to just blow the cap off all of that, he said.

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Joyal: Great Bay cleanup could cost Dover hundreds of millions - Foster's Daily Democrat