New sewer fearmongering and misinformation in Island Park [update 7/11]
By John McDaid | Sunday, 10 July 2011 |
| They're Baaaaack... |
Sometime after 9am this morning, fliers with misinformation about wastewater were illegally placed on mailboxes in the Island Park section of Portsmouth. There is no identification — whoever put these out is obviously too cowardly to identify themselves — but these are three-color printing, clearly not something slapped together.
The "facts" on the other hand...
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| Click image for PDF |
The flier (you can click the image to open a PDF version) tries to scare residents by saying that "918 families in jeopardy of losing their homes" and calling the Lombardo report a "sewer solution" that will cost "$60-80 million." It urges residents to call the "four members of the Voting Block [sic]" comprising Jim Seveney, Mike Buddemeyer, Joe Robicheau, and Keith Hamiltion.
And who's behind this nefarious scheme? "Real Estate Developers want Island Park and Portsmouth Park properties at bargain prices with sewers."
Let's just recap: The work Lombardo is doing is all that stands between Portsmouth and a DEM order FORCING us to sewer, and the approach is to seek all possible variances from DEM to allow individual homeowners to maintain individual septic systems, and only where this is technically impossible due to lot size, to identify alternatives.
Here's the nut graf from the Town web site: "Areas found to be unsuitable for on-site disposal are studied further to determine the optimum method of off-site disposal suitable for the area (generally a cluster system or innovative collective system, or a combination thereof)." You can read all about it on the Portsmouth Wastewater site.
No matter how many times Tailgunner and company stand up at the Council and call this "sewers," that's just not what it is. There are homes in Island Park with lots too small for even a high-tech onsite system. I've been to the Town Planner's office and looked at the map. Even assuming that we can negotiate with DEM to relax their setbacks (distance from basement, property line, etc.) there are still about 70 homeowners who would need some type of combined, off-site system.
Lombardo is the engineer who has been trying to develop these alternatives and defend us from DEM. And the namesless forces of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt want you to lobby the Council to terminate this effort?
Whose side are they on?
Update: On Monday morning, I turned over my copy to the Portsmouth Postmaster, who confirmed that this use of mailboxes is a violation and promised to try to find out who was responsible.