NORTH HAVERHILL — A proposal by a biodiesel plant to increase production capacity is raising concerns among neighbors about its impact on health and the environment and raising complaints about lax enforcement of restrictions at Haverhill’s town-owned business park.

The Massachusetts-based owner of the biodiesel plant at the Haverhill Business Park is seeking approval from the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services to install equipment that would increase production capacity from 6.4 million gallons of biodiesel fuel per year to 7.8 million gallons per year.

A public hearing on the proposal, which requires modifying the plant’s temporary operating permit with the state, is set to be held virtually at 6 p.m. Tuesday. The public hearing was scheduled after residents’ concerns asked the town in February to petition DES.

Renewable Fuels by Peterson, a unit of Worcester, Mass.-based Peterson Oil Service, acquired the White Mountain Biodiesel facility in 2018 from a group of investors that included Littleton, N.H., businessman Wayne Presby, former owner of the Mount Washington Hotel and Resort in Bretton Woods, N.H.

Some Haverhill residents said they have long-standing questions about emissions and waste products generated at the biodiesel plant, located near Dean Memorial Airport, and they plan to register their concerns during next week’s DES hearing.

“My real concern is with the air emissions, and before they increase production I’d really like to know what I’m breathing downwind,” said Doug Henson, a Haverhill custom wood fabricator whose residence and shop are located across the road from Haverhill Business Park. “I want to know how much I can be subjected to before my wife and I start losing our health.”

Howard Peterson, owner of Peterson Oil, sought to allay fears about the environmental and health impact from the plant, saying he is seeking to operate the plant more cleanly and efficiently.

“The equipment we are hoping to install will decrease emissions and decrease waste” while at the same time “increase yield” of biodiesel production by eliminating “bottlenecks” in the manufacturing process, Peterson said.

Peterson said the plant buys bulk cooking oil collected from the food preparation industry — restaurants and snackmakers — and then converts it into biodiesel fuel in North Haverhill. It is then shipped to the company’s storage facilities in Massachusetts before it’s sold primarily as heating fuel to customers in New England.

(Last month Renewable Fuels by Peterson had to pay a $450,000 fine to the state of Massachusetts and agree to improve its record-keeping processes in order to resolve allegations it knowingly provided state entities with heating oil that contained “significantly more” biodiesel in its fuel mix than allowed under its contracts with the state.)

Henson, 65, said that for many years the “town fathers” ignored his concerns that the biodiesel plant and other activities at Haverhill Business Park fall outside the scope of the restrictive covenants that govern the use of the property as initially conceived.

“One of the big things when the town built this park was it was supposed to be a business park, not a heavy industry park, and in my opinion, an oil plant is heavy industry,” said Henson, noting that it is also near Haverhill Cooperative Middle School.

Henson also said trucks create noise issues by idling their engines and LED lighting installed at the business park that is so powerful it “illuminates” the rooms in his house.

Henson, after what he said had been years of getting nowhere with town officials over what he contends are violations in the covenants, said he recently met with Haverhill Town Manager Brigitte Codling to bring them to her attention.

He said it is his impression that Codling is making a “real effort” to address his concerns.

Codling, via email, confirmed that the town is looking into the complaints.

“The business park covenants are documents that we review for compliance on an ongoing basis,” she said. “The town is in the process now of performing formal compliance checks for 2021 on lots located in the business park. Once that process is completed compliance reports will be issued and lot owners will get copies of those reports.

“If violations are cited then those will be outlined in the compliance reports.”

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.

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