Board of Aldermen 03-22-2022 Page 13
like, wow, we're changing this quite a bit. But this is really a deterrent. We have a lot of people bringing in debris that are
not from Nashua and filling our landfill. So this is really to help us preserve our landfill. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Any further discussion?
Alderman Lopez
I'd just like to add that | agree with Alderman Kelly's assessment. It was presented to us and at first | was like, why are we
raising the fee? How much money are we possibly going to make on this on the landfill? Except that it is not about
making more money. We're losing money because a number of contractors that do business in multiple cities are using
our landfill because it’s essentially a loophole and they can dump construction waste and that the city then either has to
remove or occupy space in our landfill and we have a limited amount of landfill. | think it’s bad enough that we have to
have a landfill like Nashua property has to be used for that purpose but the least we can do is maintain it responsibly,
make sure that there's at least ecological harm, and that the space inside of it is reserved as an amenity for people in
Nashua. | hope that this will be a good step towards ensuring that.
Alderman Sullivan
Yes | was gonna say we took a trip to the landfill before we were sworn in and we talked about this specific issue. Landfill
staff was literally walking out into the landfill to rip open bags to check the billing address of the people that just dumped.
Then they made another comment about if they dumped shingles, they would ask them the question about where they
were ripping the shingles off. And again, landfill personnel would drive to the home to verify that. My numbers might be
off here, there are four phases of the landfill and where two and a half in. This is one of the State's last municipal landfills.
So | think this is a really good idea to try to - as opposed to make money, save space
Alderman Cathey
Thank you, Madam Chair. | just wanted to echo Alderwoman Kelly's comments and Alderman Sullivan’s comments. We
did go to the landfill and this is a win for the city. It makes our landfill employees much more efficient, effective, and they
can concentrate on the work that they're doing while keeping our landfill around for a really long time. So I'm glad that this
happened.
Alderman Gouveia
Thank you, Madam President. | am for this ordinance as well solely because it's preserving the landfill, which is really one
of the very large asset for our city. Anyway we can make that stay around longer and benefit the residents of Nashua, I'm
all for it.
Alderman Thibeault
Yeah, | just wanted to echo some of that. And also, you know, | mentioned that when we had the committee meeting that,
you know, | saw somewhere that this was the Mayor's way of making a ton of money. We've all said it today that it's a
deterrent. It's to stop people from dumping the stuff. Alderman Gouveia brought up a great point and in the committee
saying, well why don't we just stop doing it? Me and him talked about it afterwards. It's not the Aldermen’s purview, right?
That would be DPW but we can start by raising the money to try to get the deterrent and if they decide that they want to
go that route in the future, we can go that route. So it's not about making money. It's about - because I'd support - same
thing with Alderman — | don’t want to put words in your mouth, but we would support, you know, if the DPW decided to just
get rid of it altogether. So | just want to make sure that it's clear that it's a deterrent. The Mayor is not lining his pockets
on this one or anything else.
Alderman Sullivan
And to make it clear, so this is a question, this is not raising the residential dump pass, correct?
President Wilshire
Correct.
