Citizens Plan Rally to Fight to Save Peirce Island

Submitted by Clare of Save Peirce Island

PORTSMOUTH, NH - Residents of Portsmouth and neighboring communities are up-in-arms about city plans to ram through vastly expanded sewage operations on a tiny Piscataqua River island instead of the Pease International Tradeport. Concerned citizens liken it to erecting a toilet in the front yard of a city built on historic charm and tourism. They compare it to the disastrous North End urban renewal project of the 1970s or the failed effort to put an oil refinery on the Isles of Shoals.

The first public hearing on the city plan to expand sewage at Peirce Island over the industrial park at Pease last week provoked an unprecedented four-hour outpouring of public opposition. With more than 200 packing Council chambers, speakers warned about the risks of five years of construction and vastly expanded sewage operations to downtown businesses, historic neighborhoods, the waterfront, tall ships program, Prescott Park Arts Festival, archaeological sites, fishing and more. Critics say the plan will inevitably expand on the tiny island popular with tourists, dog-walkers and boaters and destroy it.

The multimillion dollar bond issue the new City Council is slated to vote on Monday night is the largest in the city’s history. And critics argue that they need more time for public input.

Portsmouth has sewage plants at Peirce Island and Pease. For years, the city has been under court order to clean up its polluting primary sewage treatment operations, and all agree that the river must urgently be cleaned up. But critics say the city is shoving the Peirce Island plan after only a cursory exploration of Pease, even though sewage operations will inevitably go there as the city grows. Portsmouth has two representatives on the Pease Development Authority board. But the Portsmouth Herald recently provoked outrage by quoting PDA officials saying their tenants oppose expanded sewage operations at the tradeport because it might inconvenience them.

RALLY TO SAVE PEIRCE ISLAND MONDAY, MARCH 14, 6:30 PM @ PORTSMOUTH CITY HALL!

COME TO 7PM CITY COUNCIL MEETING TO WATCH NEW CITY COUNCIL VOTE (BRING A BOOK)!

TELL YOUR NEW CITY COUNCILORS WHAT YOU THINK!

For City Council contact information, go to: http://www.savepeirceisland.com/home.html

Press Contact: spokesman Mark Brighton 603-431-5927 or markbrighton1@gmail.com