An advocacy group is challenging a permit for Manchester’s wastewater treatment system that state regulators approved in May, saying the system could be releasing levels of PFAS chemicals into the Merrimack River that go against state standards.
In an appeal filed by the Conservation Law Foundation, lawyers say New Hampshire’s Department of Environmental Services did not consider whether the wastewater facility’s permit complied with a state standard meant to protect fish, and the people who eat them, from toxic chemicals.
While the federal Environmental Protection Agency was considering the permit, the Foundation asked them to include stronger limitations on PFAS chemicals entering the plant from industrial sources and on the chemicals coming out of the plant.
In the permit issued by the EPA and approved by New Hampshire officials, the plant is required to test for PFAS and report the levels of those chemicals coming in and going out in the effluent they discharge into the Merrimack River. It also requires testing of the levels in sludge — the solids that are separated out from wastewater and, at the Manchester plant, burned in an incinerator.
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“The purpose of this monitoring and reporting requirement is to better understand potential discharges of PFAS from this facility and to inform future permitting decisions, including the potential development of water quality-based effluent limits on a facility specific basis,” federal regulators said in a fact sheet about the permit.
There’s no current requirement to limit PFAS that comes out of the facility. Jillian Aicher, a fellow at the Conservation Law Foundation, said that’s a problem.
“People in Manchester and in surrounding communities deserve clean water,” she said. “Clean, fishable and swimmable water is what the Clean Water Act and New Hampshire state standards call for.”
In their appeal, the Conservation Law Foundation says when state officials approved that permit, they considered the state’s numerical PFAS standards but ignored a “narrative” standard that says surface waters, like the Merrimack River, must be free from toxic substances that injure animals, fish and humans or accumulate in edible aquatic life.
Aicher says she’d also like to see the City of Manchester regulate industrial sources that contribute to the accumulation of PFAS chemicals in the wastewater treatment system.
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The Manchester wastewater treatment plant, like others across the state, collects the PFAS chemicals that are widely present in the environment. They don’t add PFAS to the wastewater, but they process it in a way that changes the chemicals that are already there. That means wastewater exiting the facility can test higher for PFAS than the wastewater entering the facility.
Manchester’s plant receives hundreds of thousands of gallons of wastewater per day from industries that have historically been connected with PFAS contamination, including manufacturers, cleaning companies, and hospitals. It also processes landfill leachate, which has in some cases been found to have high levels of PFAS.
New Hampshire Senior Assistant Attorney General Christopher Aslin said the New Hampshire Department of Justice was reviewing the appeal and would represent the state’s Department of Environmental Services in the case.
The City of Manchester did not respond to requests for comment.
CONCORD, N.H. – New Hampshire lawmakers have moved to reject a Republican-backed proposal to launch an impeachment inquiry into the lone Democrat on the state’s five-member Executive Council.
On Friday, a key committee of lawmakers delivered a unanimous 17-0 vote against an impeachment inquiry into Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill of Lebanon, N.H.
The vote on House Resolution 41 followed an abbreviated public hearing, after the bill’s sponsor withdrew his support for the proposal and instead asked lawmakers on the committee to recommend killing it.
The push for Liot Hill’s impeachment was led by Representative Joe Sweeney, a Salem Republican and the deputy majority leader in the New Hampshire House.
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At issue were several emails Liot Hill had sent from her official account to help a partisan law firm identify voters impacted by a new state law. The law tightened voter ID requirements for absentee ballots.
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Sweeney had previously called Liot Hill’s correspondence “political lawfare run out of a taxpayer-funded inbox.” In December, a review by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office found that Liot Hill’s conduct was not illegal and did not constitute a misuse of office, clearing the complaint against her.
Reached by the Globe on Friday, Sweeney, who was not present at the public hearing, said in a statement he preferred to let voters decide whether Liot Hill should continue to serve in the upcoming November election.
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“After reviewing the matter and hearing the discussion, I believe the appropriate course is to move forward and allow the voters and the political process to do their work,” he said.
“The purpose of filing the resolution was to ensure that the constitutional questions raised were addressed seriously and transparently,” he said, noting that he stands by the process and the decision to recommend killing the resolution.
In an interview, Liot Hill said she was pleased with the unanimous vote from the House Judiciary Committee.
“The committee vote, I think, sends the message that there was no merit to this,” she said.
The proposal now heads to the full House of Representatives, which has the power to approve the committee’s recommendation to reject it.
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Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.
A woman has been arrested in connection with the death of her baby whose body was found in a pond in Manchester, New Hampshire last year. Hepay Juma, 26, of Manchester, is now charged with reckless second-degree murder.
The New Hampshire Attorney General said Juma was arrested for “causing the death of Baby Jane “Grace” Doe, her child, under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life.”
On March 27, 2025, the baby’s body was found floating in the water at Pine Island Park in Manchester. The baby’s death was treated as suspicious following an autopsy.
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Investigators have not released any information about how they made the arrest or how the baby died.
Hepay Juma, 26, of Manchester, NH, is charged in connection with the death of her baby.
Manchester, NH police
At the time, Manchester Police Chief Peter Marr said the baby’s death was “extremely tragic.”
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Police asked the public for help after the baby’s body was discovered. They wanted to know if anyone saw someone discarding anything in the water in the previous 14 days, or if anyone knew a pregnant woman who gave birth during that time who needed medical help.
A funeral was held for baby Grace Doe last May, and the public was invited to pay their respects. “The way she was discarded is heartbreaking, and it is important that we give her a proper farewell,” Chief Marr said last year.
The baby was named Grace by police “to celebrate the kindness extended to her by those who refuse to let her life go unrecognized.”
Juma is scheduled to be arraigned on Friday in Manchester District Court.
