Politics & Government

Great Bay Agreement on Nitrogen

More monitoring, modeling of nitrogen is ahead for Great Bay.

Per a settlement with the cities of Portsmouth, Dover and Rochester, the state Department of Environmental Services will no longer use certain nitrogen-level thresholds for water quality assessment for the Great Bay estuary, Cocheco River, Piscataqua River and Portsmouth Harbor.

The parties reached the agreement over the past month, and as a result agreed to dismiss an argument originally scheduled to be heard this week by the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

DES, in light of a joint report on a peer review of nitrogen levels issued in February, will no longer use the ".45, .30, .27 or .25" milligrams per liter total nitrogen "numeric nutrient" thresholds for assessing water quality in that watershed.

A copy of the settlement agreement and release is attached as a PDF.

Monitoring and modeling of nitrogen levels will be continuing, as the Great Bay communities work to improve and upgrade their wastewater treatment facilities. DES still believes nitrogen concentration levels are too high in Great Bay, and the department will be working with the cities on the matter.

The case in New Hampshire was a piece of litigation, not the piece of litigation. Another court action, a federal court for the District of Columbia granted an Environmental Protection motion to dismiss the three cities complaint that the EPA violated administrative procedure in approving New Hampshire's "impaired waters list" under the Clean Water Act.  


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