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Town report, state email on Lockhart closure tough to square

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MILTON - While a Recreation Committee formed at Town Meeting in 1977 noted in an annual Town Report that the Lockhart Field landfill was filled and covered according to state specifications, recent correspondence from the director of the state's Waste Management Division notes there was little or no oversight of its closure and certainly no approval of plans to construct a ballfield there.

According to an email sent to Executive Council District 1 member Joseph Kenney by the state's DES Waste Management Director, Michael J. Wimsatt, New Hampshire's requirements for solid waste facilities that ceased operating prior to 1981 are limited.

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

Wimsatt added that NHDES did not review or approve Milton's plan to construct a ballfield on the landfill, and DES has not required environmental monitoring (e.g. ground water quality monitoring) at the landfill.

The email was sent after Kenney relayed the concerns of Milton resident Les Elder regarding possible contamination at the former landfill to DES officials.

In the town report for FY1978 the rec board formed to find uses for the newly shuttered landfill said their objective "was to see if anything recreational could be salvaged after the 'Old Dump' site was filled and covered according to State Specifications."

With the state now saying older landfills like Lockhart were exempt from the rules, it wasn't immediately clear what rules, if any, did apply to its closure.

Milton selectmen voted earlier this week to padlock Lockhart Field, which is still being considered for an EPA-funded Brownfield Assessment Grant that could possibly determine if contamination lingers at the field where for years Nute High Schoolers have played and practiced softball.

Selectmen Chair Tom Gray, who has claimed Lockhart doesn't "qualify for a Brownfield grant," made the motion to padlock Lockhart on Monday.

"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," Gray said in making the motion.

Selectmen - with no discussion - agreed and the motion was passed.

Gray's move to close the field comes close on the heels of recent 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.

Meanwhile, the state's Department of Environmental Services has decided to conduct a site inspection and review other data within the next two weeks to see if a preliminary determination can be made as to whether or not the field presents any environmental danger to the public.

While Wimsatt said there is no current data to show any impact on Milton Three Ponds or local groundwater supplies, he did note in an email to Kenney that, "We will also investigate options for obtaining additional environmental data in the vicinity of the landfill."

Whether that vicinity would include Milton Three Ponds or Town Beach was not clear.

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.

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

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