Section 146-G:1 Purpose. - New Hampshire Statutes

   I. The general court finds that ethers contained in gasoline, due to their extreme fluidity, recalcitrance to natural degradation, low taste and odor thresholds, and probable carcinogenic qualities, comprise a sufficiently distinct class of property which represent a particular, present, and rapidly escalating threat to the quality of all the water of the state and, thereby, to our citizens. The general court also finds that potentially serious health, safety, and environmental problems are evidenced due to the speed with which ethers are able to flow into, contaminate, and accumulate in invaluable groundwater supplies. In addition, the cost of cleanup of gasoline ethers in groundwater and surface water is a significant economic burden for which economic assistance may otherwise not be available.
   II. The purpose of this chapter is to provide procedures that will expedite the cleanup of gasoline ether spillage, mitigate the adverse affects of gasoline ether discharges, encourage preventive measures, impose a fee upon importers of neat gasoline ethers into the state and establish a fund for the remediation of groundwater and surface water contaminated by gasoline ethers. The fund may also be used to provide financial reimbursement to owners of public and private water supplies for the treatment and removal of gasoline ethers and associated contaminants when present with those ethers from those supplies. The fund established under this chapter shall be in addition to the oil pollution control fund established pursuant to RSA 146-A:11-a and is separate from the oil discharge and disposal cleanup fund established pursuant to RSA 146-D:3.

Source. 2001, 293:10, eff. July 1, 2001.