Judge Orders Review Of Manchester's Water Treatment Plant Permit

By AARON R. DAVIS, InDepth NH

A federal appeals board has sent Manchester’s wastewater treatment plant permit back for review after a legal challenge over “forever chemicals” discharge into the Merrimack River.

The Environmental Appeals Board issued the ruling on Wednesday and sent Manchester’s wastewater permit back to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a fuller analysis of per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) amounts. PFAS are also known as “forever chemicals” due to their long persistence in the environment and are linked to health risks and accumulate in fish and other wildlife.

The ruling doesn’t invalidate the city’s permit or require specific limits, but it does require an answer to the question of whether PFAS discharged by the city’s treatment plant causes or contributes to water violations in the Merrimack River.

“The EPA had not done this analysis in the first round, as required under the Clean Water Act,” said Jillian Aicher, a staff attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) which challenged the city’s permit. “700,000 people rely on the Merrimack as a source of drinking water and that includes municipalities in New Hampshire, like Nashua, and also ones in northern Massachusetts.”

At issue is a mixture of standards. When the state adopts water quality standards, they can adopt numeric ones, such as a water source can only have a maximum contaminant level of X parts per trillion. The state also adopts narrative standards for other areas, such as the Merrimack River with a designated use for supporting a “population of fish free from toxicants and pathogens that could pose a human health risk to consumers,” according to state law. The board ruled that the EPA could not ignore those broader narrative standards in state law simply because state numeric standards were still pending.

“The board said that isn’t an adequate decision. These narrative standards exist,” Aicher said. “It’s a stricter evaluation of whether a reduction is needed. The board didn’t say it needed to include a limit, but it did say it needed to do a thorough analysis.”

While the Manchester treatment plant had been conducting voluntary PFAS monitoring, the ruling now places it on the EPA’s shoulders to determine whether the monitoring requires additional action.

When reached for comment, an EPA agency spokesperson said that the EPA is reviewing the decision.

This story was originally published by InDepth NH.