CLAREMONT — The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services has denied a recycling company’s proposal to truck 500 tons of construction and demolition debris a day to its facility on Industrial Boulevard.

The reasons for denial, including traffic obstruction and insufficient property setbacks, are detailed in a six-page letter from Michael Wimsatt, director of the Waste Management Division at DES, to Recycling Services.

The proposed operation would violate New Hampshire Administrative law that requires a facility to “be designed to prevent entering and exiting vehicles from obstructing the safe flow of traffic on any public road leading to or from [the] facility,” Wimsatt wrote in the May 22 letter.

As proposed, the operation would have up to 48, 35-foot trucks a day turning on to Industrial Boulevard and entering Recycling Services at 38 Industrial Blvd. to be weighed.

The trucks would then leave at the far end of the business, cross Industrial Boulevard and enter the property at 43 Industrial Blvd., where the debris would be dumped on a tipping floor to be sorted for recyclables with non-recyclable waste loaded onto rail cars.

After unloading, each truck would return to 38 Industrial Blvd. to be weighed a second time before exiting and leaving the area.

The trucks, each carrying a 40 cubic yard roll-off container, “will completely obstruct the public road,” Wimsatt wrote. In addition, the radius from the road into the facility is inadequate to accommodate a roll-off truck, he said.

“The proposed operation would cause a total of up to about 192 obstructions of traffic in the road each operating day,” Wimsatt wrote. “An additional unquantified number of obstructions would also be caused by the increase in trucks transporting recyclable materials away from 43 Industrial Blvd.”

Allowing trucks to queue at 38 Industrial Blvd., as proposed by the applicant, would interfere with recycling operations, which is also a violation of the administrative rules for solid waste, Wimsatt said.

DES also denied the company’s request to waive a requirement for a 50-foot setback from the property line.

The facility is now allowed to operate under its existing permit within 50 feet of the property line, but because it is planning to build a new facility and increase daily tonnage by a factor of 10, it must seek a setback waiver, Wimsatt wrote.

Acuity Management of Massachusetts, Recycling Services’ parent company, owns the property to the north. The railroad, which would be used to transport debris, owns the property to the south. Acuity told DES that it has agreement with the railroad.

  But DES said it can’t assume property ownership or the agreement with the railroad won’t change at some future point in time.

Acuity has been trying to expand its Claremont recycling operation to include construction and demolition for several years. The company has argued adding such materials to its operation should be allowed at the site because the debris would be sorted there. What could not be recycled would be sent by rail to a landfill in Ohio.

But the city twice denied the company’s application for construction debris to be added to the list of acceptable recycling materials. In denying the application in 2021, the city’s zoning administrator said the proposed operation would make it a transfer station, which is not allowed in the industrial district. The Zoning Board twice upheld denials by the zoning administrator.

The board instructed Acuity to apply to DES for a modification of its recycling permit, issued in 1987, to add construction and demolition material to its list of recyclable goods. Acuity filed its DES application in 2023. In November 2024, DES deemed the application complete. The department held a public hearing in Claremont in March at the opera house, which drew nearly 400 residents most of whom spoke against Acuity’s plans.

A Better Claremont, a local group formed to oppose Acuity, issued a statement Thursday afternoon. “The decision culminates a multi-year effort by Acuity to operate a massive dump and ship operation in the city, despite significant opposition from the public. A Better Claremont (ABC) says DES did the right thing,” the statement said.

The group said residents were concerned about changing a local recycling business to one of the largest construction and demolition waste depots in the state.

“DES listened to reason and did the right thing,” John Tuthill, of Acworth, a member of the opposition group, said in the release. “Acuity’s proposal did not add up.”

At the March public hearing, residents voiced concerns about air and groundwater pollution, damage to roads, noise and harm to public health.

“ABC does not want any other community to go through the threat of takeover by the private waste industry,” Rebecca MacKenzie said in the group’s release. “Dumping thousands of tons of mixed C&D waste onto a downstream community is poor management that endangers our health and environment.”

Acuity has 30 days to appeal the decision. Peter Cameron, one of the owners of Acuity, did not return a phone message left for him.

Patrick O’Grady can be reached at  pogclmt@gmail.com.