Flush with excitement, city OKs resolution for 'don't flush' wipes labeling

With the recent COVID surge, City Council has gone back to fully remote meetings. (Courtesy image/City of Rochester)

ROCHESTER - Rochester's public portion of Tuesday night's City Council meeting comprised about an hour with a quarter of that devoted to a resolution on bathroom wipes.

That's right, bathroom wipes, those sanitary, sometimes fragranced towelettes that some folks apply to and around their private parts after a visit to the bathroom.

City Councilor David Walker, chair of the Public Works and Building Committee, introduced the request, saying that New Hampshire's Commissioner of Public Works had urged the city to adopt the resolution.

"People are flushing these wipes down the toilets and this buggers up the wastewater treatment plans," Walker told the council.

The resolution's intent was to force manufacturers of such "nonwoven" products to label them "nonflushable" or face fines.

Rochester Pubic Works Director Peter Nourse said wipes flushed down the toilets of customers on city water causes a myriad of problems with the city's wastewater system, including clogging of wastewater infrastructure which costs taxpayer money to fix and puts city workers doing the job at risk.

Nourse added that even flushing of "woven" products like paper toweling can be troublesome to wastewater infrastructure, but this resolution applied only to "nonwoven" products which prove most problematic.

State Senator and City Councilor James Gray said current manufacturers of such wipes had told lawmakers that if a law is passed that would force them to change their labels, they would simply stop distributing the products to the state, because the demand here doesn't warrant any further investment.

The council voted 11-1 to adopt the resolution, with Gray the only one to vote against it.

In other business, the council voted to authorize the city to purchase 11 Barker Court for $290,000 by a vote of 9-3, with councilors Pamela Belken, Jeremy Hutchinson and Gray voting against it.

City Manager Blaine Cox said last month the city was interested in buying the property to improve the attractiveness of the Union Street parking lot. He said the city's plan was to raze the building.

City Council also unanimously approved the addition of three 15-minute parking spaces on North Main and inside the Union Street parking lot for residents purchasing to-go meals from downtown restaurants, which continue to suffer financially due to the pandemic and social distancing restrictions inside their establishments.

Mayor Caroline McCarley also announced that she'd learned that Somersworth space had become available for an extreme weather homeless shelter that could house up to 40-50.

The shelter, whose address she did not reveal, should become available mid-December and would be staffed by volunteers.

Tri-cities officials will determine what the weather parameters would be that would call for the shelter to be opened, said McCarley, who added she envisioned the shelter would be primarily for overnight stays.

The shelter would be in addition to the permanent shelter inside Dover's Garrison Hotel.