Great Bay Coalition Suffers Setback

The Great Bay Coalition communities that are suing the state over how the Great Bay Estuary nutrient criteria was set suffered a legal setback when a Merrimack County Superior Court judge refused to hear their motion to reconsider how the state set the criteria.

Foster's Daily Democrat reported on Thursday morning that the communities of Portsmouth, Exeter, Dover, Rochester and Newmarket had asked the court to reconsider a previous ruling where a judge declined to determine how the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services should have implemented the nutrient criteria. The newspaper reported the Great Bay Coalition communities had argued the state agency should have followed the New Hampshire Administrative Rulemaking procedures when it set the criteria.