Special Bd. of Aldermen — 10/26/15 Page 8
it is a water supply for several communities that take their drinking water and their firefighting needs or
whatever from the Merrimack.
Can this be looked upon financially as a multi-state type of issue, because | imagine that there are toxins and it
gets into ... is this particular area prone to flooding within the 500,000 or biblical flood plain area? When you do
encapsulate it, can it potentially leak and can it be more of a problem downstream as well?
Mr. Millan-Ramos | would say the short answer to that question is yes, all of that can happen if it is not
properly designed and properly built.
Ms. Taylor Or if it stays the way it is.
Mr. Millan-Ramos Correct. If the appropriate design is made and it is built correctly, little or no chance of that
happening.
Ms. Taylor Part of our requirements are that any of these containment structures have to withstand at a
minimum of 500 year flood. So any of these containment structures that are built, whether or not it be the cap,
if it is in the 500 year flood plain or the secant wall which would be in the 500 year flood plain, needs to meet to
be able to meet technical specifications in order to be protective of a 500 year flood. Right now, this material
has been sitting there, when did Mohawk Tannery first start disposing there?
Mr. Millan-Ramos It was in the ‘20’s.
Ms. Taylor ‘20’s. Yes. So it’s been there since the ‘20s and it is still there. Not to say that some catastrophic
thing couldn’t happen, that’s why we want to try to deal with it sooner rather than later and this is the perfect
opportunity to do that. Whereas, if we went ahead and tried to list it on the National Priorities List it would be
fully funded by taxpayers and it could be sitting on that priority list for years because there are a number sites,
even as of 2017, there are about 1,200, 1,300 sites on the National Priorities List right now, about 20 of them
do not have any funding and haven’t for over 3 years at this point. So we would need to go through that route,
whereas this route, it basically is being dealt with next summer.
Alderman O’Brien
In your experience, or anybody in the EPA have had a similar situation where this could be multi-jurisdictional
within the different states. Because my question is whatever contaminates are now leaking and if it is getting
into the Nashua River is it getting down as far as the drinking supply in the other municipalities.
Ms. Taylor At this stage we have not seen that there is any contamination in the Nashua River either in the
sediment or the surface water. We have tested that historically at the site.
Alderman Klee
Adding on to Alderman O’Brien’s question, in anything that we do, whether we use a secant, whether we
removed it, whatever happens, is there any probably or possibility of that action itself creating a leakage into it.
It is so close to the edge, that’s my concern.
Ms. Taylor Would building the secant wall create ....?
Alderman Klee
Or even removing it? | have been to a couple of meetings where people have said remove it all. Would that
alone, the act of doing that, the act of building a secant wall, the act of anything, can that create a potential of
contaminating into the river?
