Also on today’s menu:
Hotly Contested Electric Co-op Race
Putin’s Banning Of Certain Americans ‘A Badge Of Honor’
Governor Now Behind Marijuana Legalization
New Hampshire received $25 million as part of a settlement with Monsanto, the company that commercially manufactured nearly all polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) used in the United States, with $20 million left after attorneys’ fees. PCBs are toxic “forever chemicals” that the company allegedly knew had the potential for harm but continued to market and sell to the public. The state’s 2020 lawsuit said PCBs have impaired 104 water bodies in New Hampshire, at least 63,000 acres of surface water, and at least 2.3 linear miles of the Souhegan River. Contaminated loon eggs have been identified in more than 20 lakes, the highest levels of PCBs being at Squam Lake.
Tiffany Grade, a biologist with the Loon Preservation Committee, said “Back in the ’60s and ’70s, we know the dirt roads around here were sprayed with oil to keep the dust down, and people would put PCBs into that oil. The site where we found elevated sediments, it’s immediately downstream of a dirt road. The working hypothesis is the road is the source.”
The settlement award, however, did not go to toward PCB remediation efforts; it went into the state’s general fund. Michael Garrity of the Attorney-General’s Office said the New Hampshire Legislature would have to pass a law dictating where the settlement funds go. Governor Chris Sununu proposed using $6 million of the settlement fund to assist with PCB remediation in this year’s proposed biennial budget, but House lawmakers reduced the amount to $1 million.
Hotly Contested Electric Co-op Race
The New Hampshire Electric Cooperative’s annual board election has attracted more member interest than usual this year, with petitioned candidates as well as those nominated by the board’s nominating committee. Seeking election to three-year terms are Patricia Barbour of Lee, Madeline McElaney of Plymouth, John Simonelli of Epping, and Harry Viens of Center Harbor, with incumbent William Darcy of Benton running by petition. Seeking election to the one-year term is nominated candidate Leon “Lee” Pierhal of Wentworth, with incumbent Leo Dwyer of Sandwich running by petition.
Choosing not to recommend two incumbent board members for reelection is unusual, but Darcy and Dwyer are mounting a strong campaign with yard signs reminding Co-op members that they are in the running, while an anonymous website castigates them for not voting to lower rates.
State consumer advocate Donald Kreis notes that, “in most if not all instances, the directors have no alternative but to bless the increases unless they want to see their utility become insolvent. The two directors were hardly alone in supporting the rate increases.” He explained that electricity rates soared throughout the region in the last two years, while the Co-op’s 13-cent default energy service rate is the lowest in New Hampshire.
Some members also have complained about the two petitioned candidates having supported the Co-op’s broadband buildout initiative as being outside the scope of an electric cooperative. When the cooperative movement was born 179 years ago in England, it was established to promote socially conscious investing. Electric cooperatives were essential in extending electric lines into rural areas.
A larger issue the unnamed authors of the website raise is that the two candidates “have contributed to a hostile working environment, which has resulted in the voluntary turnover of nearly every single senior executive, including [the] CEO, over the past three years.”
Putin’s Banning Of Certain Americans ‘A Badge Of Honor’
New Hampshire Attorney-General John M. Formella responded to the inclusion of his name in a list of 500 Americans banned from Russia by saying, “Given the atrocities we are seeing the Kremlin carry out, being blacklisted by Russia is a badge of honor. ... This ‘action’ will have no impact on me, my office, or our work.”
Others on the Kremlin’s blacklist include Barack Obama, Stephen Colbert, Rachel Maddow, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Erin Burnett, and Joe Scarborough.
The action, according to Russia’s foreign ministry, came “[i]n response to the anti-Russian sanctions regularly imposed by the Biden administration ... Washington should have learned a long time ago that not a single hostile step against Russia will be left unanswered.”
Russia said it blacklisted senators, congressmen, and members of think tanks “involved in the spread of Russophobic attitudes and fakes” as well as the heads of companies that supply weapons to Ukraine.
Governor Now Behind Marijuana Legalization
With Governor Chris Sununu’s new willingness to endorse the legalization of marijuana, the House Commerce Committee will take up a proposal today that would make New Hampshire the final New England state to allow adult recreational use of weed. Until his recent turnabout, Sununu has been a persistent skeptic of cannabis legalization.
Committee Chair John Hunt (R-Rindge), who sponsored the most recent legalization amendment, said, “I just want to get this solved.” The bill would put the New Hampshire Liquor Commission in charge of regulating and selling cannabis.
While the bill would prohibit public use of the drug, with fines of as much as $500 for violations, it would allow adults to possess up to four ounces of marijuana or 20 grams of “concentrated cannabis products” such as hashish and vape cartridges.
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