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PRESS
RELEASE
Contact:
Charles
Greenhalgh, 603 323 5439 (day)
OR
Kate Vachon, 603 323 8224 (day or evening)
Focus:
Tamworth voices concerns over Club Motorsports wetlands application
Tamworth,
April 2 - In March, Club Motorsports Inc of Derry submitted applications
to the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services for two of the
many permits it will need before it builds its racetrack on the side of
Mt. Whittier in Tamworth. Focus: Tamworth, a community group whose
mission is to support fair and balanced local regulations that enhance
the town’s quality of life, has been examining the permit
applications, and is concerned about several aspects of them.
“The
developers seem to be ignoring Tamworth’s Race Track Ordinance, which
was adopted by the selectmen last fall and made permanent at this
year’s town meeting by an overwhelming majority -- 233 - 43,” says
Charles Greenhalgh, the group’s spokesperson.
One
concern that relates directly to the Race Track Ordinance, he says, is
that the plans submitted with the Club Motorsports applications do not
show any noise abatement measures. In the summer of 2003, a professional
noise study commissioned by the Tamworth Foundation was used to set the
Race Track Ordinance noise limit of 69 decibels at the property line.
Chris Menge, the sound engineer who did the study, indicated at a public
meeting that in order to stay within that limit, the developer would
need to restrict the use of some vehicles and erect sound mitigation
barriers, most likely large earthen berms, alongside the track. A study
for a similar track under construction in the town of Calabogie, Ontario
recently recommended “fifteen-meter high sound barrier berms at key
locations.” “That’s a wall of earth almost fifty feet high,”
Greenhalgh points out. “Berms like that will increase both the impact
on wetlands and the amount of terrain disturbed. They should have been
included in the plans submitted with the application.”
Another
concern is that the application appears to be lacking some important
elements required by NH DES to prevent and control spills of 108-octane
racing fuel that will be trucked onto the facility. The Race Track
Ordinance requires best management practices for fuel handling and
storage. This is particularly important because the track is located
over the recharge area for the important Ossipee stratified drift
aquifer, the largest in the state. The aquifer supplies water to wells
in Tamworth, Ossipee, Madison, Freedom, Effingham, Sandwich and on into
Maine. “The soils over the aquifer are very permeable, and spills
could threaten the purity of its water,” Greenhalgh says.
The
application proposes to trade the wetlands it will destroy on the
racetrack site for others that it will purchase and protect elsewhere.
NH DES allows this kind of compensation or “mitigation” when
wetlands are destroyed, but Tamworth’s own Wetlands Ordinance, adopted
in 1991, does not. In New Hampshire, a “home rule” state, when local
laws are more stringent than state laws, the local laws take precedence.
“It’s hard to imagine how the developers could redesign their
project to conform to Tamworth’s ordinance,” Greenhalgh says.
Muriel Robinette of Haley &
Aldrich, and Rick Van de Poll, of Ecosystem Management Consultants, are
working with Focus: Tamworth to review the wetlands, wildlife, natural
resources, site engineering, construction, and hydrology issues in the
application. They have noted a number of important deficiencies in the
permit applications that warrant further review in order to insure the
town is protected, Greenhalgh adds.
“We’ve
been told by several sources that this application has been put on a
fast track through the DES review process,” Greenhalgh says. “Local
control must not be bypassed. We urge NH DES to require that Club
Motorsports re-do and re-submit its plans to address these and other
important concerns.”
The
Tamworth Conservation Commission, which is required to comment on the
application, will hold a hearing for public input on the application on
Monday, April 12 at the Brett School in Tamworth. The hearing will start
at 6:30, when the commission will meet with representatives of ESS Group
Inc of Massachusetts, the engineering firm that prepared the Club
Motorsports application; the public is welcome. The official hearing for
public comment will begin at 8 PM.
The
commission must submit its comments to DES soon after the April 12
hearing. On Tuesday, April 27, DES will hold its own hearing, also at
the Brett School. A time for the DES hearing will be announced soon.
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