From the Eagle Tribune;
Newton tightens up water regulations
By Jarret Bencks
jbencks@eagletribune.com
September 29, 2008 12:26 am
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NEWTON — Any company or individual applying for a water franchise or personal well will now have to go through the town's Planning Board before submitting an application to the state.
Planners on Tuesday unanimously approved new rules aimed at giving the town more authority over its water supply and more notice upon submissions of water franchise requests.
The rules, submitted by board alternate and Rep. Mary Allen, restrict companies or individuals from trucking or piping water from Newton to be used elsewhere.
The new rules also require any organization seeking a water franchise in town to notify the Planning Board. If it does not approve the water franchise, the request could still go to the state, but the Planning Board would notify the Department of Environmental Services of its disapproval, Allen said.
This summer, Hampstead Area Water Co. submitted a request to the state for a 642-acre franchise in Newton to supply water to the Sargent Woods development and nearby homes.
The company reduced its proposal to just the 66 acres the development sits on after a public hearing in July, where many residents and officials voiced their objections. The scaled-back proposal for water withdrawal was approved by the Public Utilities Commission on Aug. 8.
Atkinson residents also have taken action in an attempt to protect the town's water supply. Voters overwhelmingly approved new ordinances that adopted the town's water withdrawal ordinance as a health ordinance, and put restrictions on water withdrawals in town during a Special Town Meeting earlier this month.
Selectmen and Planning Board members in Atkinson have objected to the new ordinances, asserting they are illegal and could bring the town into a long legal battle.
Newton Planning Board member Jim Doggett said he believes the rules in his town are within state regulations. "If you read our set of rules, they're very simple in language," Doggett said. "They are in our regulations and I think the Planning Board is willing to defend them."
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2 comments:
Atkinson-Factor says,
Nice article about Newtons fight with the HAWC, and how about our town officals here in Atkinson? From what i have seen with Fred Childs actions and his public quotes on the matter, he has no intention of fighting any water withdrawal from the HAWC. His behavior reminds me of the country of France back in WW11. Even after public outcry at the last selectmans meeting from concerned residents about the lack of interest in the selectmans actions on the water issue, the selectman still havn't done anything at the state level to back up what the residents voted on in early sept.
Our Planning board is against this fight over our water also, so them sticking up for what we overwhelming voted for is slim.... Harold Morse sits on the planing board and also is part of the HWAC ( Now that is a conflict of interest isn't it? ). That reason alone tells me why the planing board is against the water fight.
Atkinson should be the leading town fighting this battle, but our officals are doing absolutly nothing. All they can say is, " We will take it under advisement".
Newton has two things in its favor that Atkinson does not.
- A Planning Board that cares what the citizens want and no HAWC employees sitting on it.
- A Board of Selectmen that cares what the citizens want.
With the Planning Board's current make up, expect nothing but support for HAWC's plans. There are some good guys on the board, but not enough, and Harold Morse's membership has nothing to do with serving the public interests but entirely serving HAWC/Lewis interests.
The BOS has refused to acknowledge citizen concerns despite that disaster of a public information session last spring and the recent 3 to 1 vote in favor of protecting our water. Now, they did meet with two prominent citizens to discuss what to do about the vote but all we heard out of it was Fred's statement, "We can write a letter."
This could all be funny if it weren't so damn serious to those affected by HAWC's plans.
Let's face it. These two boards do not represent the citizens of Atkinson. I don't know what their problem is but they are an embarrassment.
"Write a letter" - Priceless
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