Focus: Tamworth, CMI settle gasoline-storage appeal

Other lawsuit about wetlands still pending

Nate Giarnese

TAMWORTH—Community group Focus: Tamworth and developer Club Motorsports Inc., have reached an agreement, the group announced Thursday, on how the company will store gasoline at its planned private high-performance driving course.

The agreement settles the group's appeal of a water quality certificate awarded to CMI by N.H. Department of Environmental Services. An appeal hearing, once scheduled to go before a state water council later this month, will not take place.

Focus: Tamworth spokesman, Charles Greenhalgh, called the settlement a "partial victory for the environment." CMI, he said, agreed to change how it plans to distribute fuel and manage spills, runoff and drainage at its hillside Mount Whittier site. But, Greenhalgh said, the Derry developer did not agree to a permanent ban on fuels containing the additive methyl tertiary-butyl ether, or MtBE.

"They have only agreed to a ban until January 1, 2007, when the state law that bans MtBE is scheduled to take effect," he said. “We are disappointed that CMI did not agree with our assessment of the extreme environmental hazards of MtBE."

“We appealed the certificate because we were concerned about the possible release of gasoline at the site,” Greenhalgh said.

In a separate but related lawsuit, Focus: Tamworth has asked a Rockingham County court to force CMI to comply with a local wetlands ordinance. A hearing is set for Dec. 19.

Greenhalgh also said that CMI's operating plan shows the track will violate a recently enacted town noise ordinance. He said his group may appeal the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit which included the approved plan.

Some in Tamworth complain that Focus: Tamworth could drive out the company and its $28 million project, promised jobs and tax relief. The company has said the sound ordinance unfairly targets its business. And some have charged that the wetlands ordinance is being used selectively as a weapon against certain kinds of development.

The Tamworth board of selectmen has instructed all municipal government boards to stay out of the private suit.

CMI appeared Thursday in a Wall Street Journal feature about luxury cars and upscale automotive clubs. The article said "membership growth has been brisk" at two clubs that have yet to be built, including CMI's Valley Motorsports park, which has already signed up 200 members.

Costs of Valley Motorsports Park memberships range from $6,000 to $100,000, according to CMI's Web site.

"We sell memberships like a regular golf club, but instead of golf, you come out and play with your toys -- Porsches and Mustangs," Mark Basso, president of the The Autobahn Country Club Joliet, Ill, a similar club, explained to the Journal.