Paper trail on Lockhart not likely to shed much light

MILTON - The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Safety and the federal Environmental Protection Agency will oversee any digging of test hole sites that may be deemed necessary at Lockhart Field, a regional planner with the Strafford Regional Planning Commission said this week.

Matt Sullivan said that Lockhart Field, which has been approved for a Brownfield Grant study, is now in phases one of what will be an ongoing assessment to determine the extent of possible toxins that could be present at the former town landfill, which was closed some 35 years ago.

As part of the phase one assessment, any paper trail regarding the specifics of the landfill's closure will be sought out and studied, however, The Lebanon Voice has been told by town personnel all minutes recorded during the closure were stored not at Town Hall but at a personal residence and are unrecoverable.

Sullivan said if there were an absence of document history, verbal interviews with longtime town residents who were close to the project would also be used as well as possible additional site inspections.

Sullivan, who had said earlier that the lack of redevelopment plans for the former landfill might hurt the application process, noted that a recent proposal to construct a solar array at the site provided part of the impetus to move employment of the Brownfield Grant funds forward.

"Solar development would definitely classify as a legitimate reuse," he said, adding it was an ideal solution with minimal environmental impact.

The phase one - or paper trail search - will likely last a few months, after which all results will be presented to the public, Sullivan said.

Milton selectmen voted in late July to abruptly padlock the field after Selectmen Chair Tom Gray made a motion for its closure in somewhat cryptic fashion.

"Lockhart Field has become such a hot topic with innuendo and suggestions, people not knowing exactly what's going on, so I am making a suggestion that we lock the field and post no trespassing till we get a handle on it," he said at the time.
Selectmen - with no discussion - unanimously voted to pass the motion.

In fact, Gray's move to close the field came in the wake of a flurry of posts on social media regarding chronic illnesses said to have afflicted Nute softball team members who played and practiced at the field while in high school.

A DES review was later prompted by an email from town resident Les Elder who was concerned about possible contamination at the site and possible leaching of that contamination into Milton Three Ponds.

That site review - which was purely a walkabout with no test holes - found no obvious leachates, officials said.

There has been lingering concern for years by area residents about the former town landfill, which was covered in topsoil but never capped like the former landfill behind the transfer station where a solar garden is now situated.

Social media posts in July and early August pointed to concerns over various nervous system disorders like MS by women who said they were former Nute High softball team members.

One, from a woman who said she was a former Nute student and manager of the high school softball squad, said she had Transverse Myelitis, which is sometimes associated with multiple sclerosis.

While the woman's name is identified on Facebook, The Lebanon Voice did not disclose her named due to privacy concerns. The woman said she recently contacted a lawyer regarding Lockhart Field and that she would have no comment for the press at this time.

However, in her initial post, she speaks of others on the team who had been affected by what she calls the "poisons" present at Lockhart Field.

"I am an alumni from Nute/Milton... well, I have some issues going on and I'm seriously thinking about bringing it forward... our girls' softball field was built on top of the old dump... that field IS poisonous! Every single girl from that first year (I was the manager so I was there just as much) ... I will not mention names but we all have something neurological wrong with us... ," the post reads in part.

Another woman claiming to be a Nute High alum, commented "I agree that something is wrong, I also was diagnosed with MS about 16 years ago and I have heard that many of us have neurological problems."

Area residents from both Milton and Lebanon have quietly harbored fears that potential toxins from the unlined landfill could be leaching into the local aquifer, the Salmon Falls watershed and MTP.

The state's DES description of the Lockhart Field landfill notes it is inactive and that the Town of Milton "has reported to NHDES that the landfill accepted all types of solid waste generated in the Town, including municipal solid waste and construction & demolition debris, and that the landfill ceased operating in 1978." They also note that some waste was occasionally burned and that there are numerous similar former town landfills located throughout the state.

Since the Lockhart Field landfill ceased operating prior to July 10, 1981, the landfill was not required to be closed with an engineered cap, and no restrictions were imposed on use of the landfill property.

Milton constructed a ball field on the landfill sometime around or prior to 2001, according to an agency email, however, NHDES did not review or approve Milton's plan to construct a ball field on the town-owned property.

Sullivan said if contamination is found, the town would be responsible in a basic scenario, however "depending what we find the Feds could step in and help depending on a host of different factors.

"There's a potential it could be the town's responsibility," he added.

Meanwhile, what little there is about Lockhart Field's closure and rebirth as a softball field can be found in old Town Reports like the one in 1981 in which the Recreation Committee reports, "As of December, 1981, we have a fenced-in softball field that is used nearly every day of the spring and summer by the high school girls softball team, church teams and an independent little league baseball team."

The report also states, "A tennis court is now complete and gets a lot of use, plus it also serves as an outdoor basketball court and that gets a lot of use from our local three-on-three basketball teams."