To the editor:

I grew up in Portsmouth. I recall that in 1962-63 when I was 8 or 9 years old, I would accompany my father to the old Island Park dump. My father would go in wingtip shoes, dress pants and white ironed shirt. My mother insisted that I go in Chuck Taylor’s and the rattiest clothes she could find. At the dump there were always fires going to burn trash and the task of a 7- or 8-year-old was to throw garbage as far into the fire as we could safely do. On my return home my mother wouldn’t insist that I shower.

In 1966 or ’67, the state legislature passed laws closing all of the landfills. This was done because people recognized that they were estuaries were necessary for marine life (not because of any toxicity). Portsmouth was required to close it landfill around 1972-73. In preparation for the closure they built what is now known as the transfer station. It was designed at the time to accommodate the population of the town, which was a little over 11,000. 

Currently, Portsmouth’s population is closer to 18,000. The transfer station cannot accommodate all of its citizens. I believe it is close to its saturation at this point. While people have different numbers, my best understanding is there are roughly 1,500 stickers sold for the transfer station. This means that approximately 5,500 people use some form of private trash-hauling. People claim the transfer station has no financial impact on the town. This is not accurate. 1,500 people descending upon the town hall in January of each year occupy a considerably large number of work hours reviewing the applications and providing the stickers and of course accepting the payments. During the rest of the year, staff have to be available for people who come late to purchase stickers and the entire administration of the transfer station is done by the administration of the town.

I believe the town is obligated to carefully husband the resources of the community and to expend money only upon those obligations that are necessary and proper for municipality. I say this because while none of the administration or staff has complained about having to attend to transfer station matters, it is not an obligation of the town and is not the best use of our tax revenues. Anticipating an argument I will say that all of the people who use the transfer station should at least be taxpayers, but so our all the people who employ a private hauler. If the transfer station was available to all, I suppose an argument could be that people are just opting not to use. But it is not available to all.

Finally, the transfer station is probably the most inefficient method of collecting trash. Each person has to load up their private vehicle drive to the station and sometimes wait in line before they can deliver it at which point is transferred to a larger vehicle. It makes sense that the larger vehicle collecting them all would be more fuel-efficient. If the town were to negotiate a price for trash-hauling for all of its residents, it would be much cheaper than the individual charges of each private person and probably would not be that much more expensive, if at all, than the real cost of the transfer station.

People have pointed out several benefits to the transfer station that are not currently found with the private trash-haulers. Be assured we are thinking about a contract for the entire town in which we would be free to try and address all of those in concerns, including yard waste, composting, large item disposal, etc. It would be a contract which could be as flexible as our needs. Some seem to have a visceral attachment to the transfer station as, in some ways, I have to the days I used to accompany my father down to the old Island Park dump. It is a way of the past which really has no place now.

Charles Levesque

542 Park Ave.

Portsmouth

Editor’s note: Charles Levesque is a member of the Portsmouth Town Council.