Hinsdale gravel pit raises ire

Members of the Planning Board have decided to continue a public hearing to further review an application for an excavation permit in a gravel pit on Meetinghouse Road.

[BLocal]

Sounds like Smokey didn't get his way with his "Construction & Debris " incinerator or his bid for re-election so that he could change the laws to allow for his Construction & Debris Incinerator - so now the townspeople have to pay.

[Old Mill]

Well, it looks like old Smokey Smith is up to his armpits again. Sorry Smoke, but the days of, "I own this town" are dwindling fast. It takes more than just a pat on the back, a wink and a nod to get things done anymore. I always thought that Meeting House and Oxbow roads were the most beautiful residential parts of town. A huge shame that it is all going to commercial and indusrial use. 119 is the place for such doings and it's time for the town to change zoning on Monument, Oxbow and Meeting house. Now I'm not sugesting that you kick existing operations out, but you should not allow current operations/use to change for already developed commericial and industrial sites. Absoultly the zoning needs to change back to rural residential/agricultural for the remaining undeveloped lots in that end of town. Those old roads could never hold up to more trucks, and I suspect that is why those lots never sold.

[Mike Mulligan]

It was interesting, three weeks ago on my bike I heard large noises coming from that area of town. I got curious, I followed the noise up Meeting House road. The noise was coming from the property opposite the large chain link fence. On the fence there was a warning that behind the fence was a public water supply and violators inside the property would be severely punished. I'd seen somebody piling us dirt or debris of some sort right near the fence. I notices he was a town employee with a large bucket loader...I mean it fit with what the sign said on the chain link fence. I walked up to the bucket loader while he was waiting...asked him what was going on. He said the town stores large concrete pieces, like cellars from houses that has been demolished, large stones, ledge rocks and pavement back there. Then the town brings in a big mechanical rock and concrete crusher and it is all crushed up. That was the very loud noise I heard from many miles off. He said they added the crushed rocks to the gravel/dirt...that is what they place on all the town's dirt roads to smooth them out and repair them.

Hmm I said, is there a municipal water supply back there, I knew Hinsdale got their water from wells. I always thought the warning on the fence was bogus with a public water supply. The equipment operator thought there for a moment...�nope there is no public water shed back there� he said?

[Old Mill]

Mike, ever wonder where the old Erving paper mill is laid to rest? Are you familiar with that nice dirt parking lot that suddenly sprang up in the wetland/setback area next to the river off 119. Yep, that old mill filled that wetland in quite nicely. That's how things get done in Hinsdale. Assure the towns people that the ole mill will be cleaned up and will be dumped off on someone elses back poarch and then suddenly a nice new parking lot appears where fish and birds used to swim. And the river conservation committie and the Army Corps of Engeneers and the EPA and the State of NH had nothing to say about it. Perhaps that is because the right people forgot to mention it to those who ought to know?

[Tamarac]

Old Mill wrote:

Mike, ever wonder where the old Erving paper mill is laid to rest? Are you familiar with that nice dirt parking lot that suddenly sprang up in the wetland/setback area next to the river off 119. Yep, that old mill filled that wetland in quite nicely. That's how things get done in Hinsdale. Assure the towns people that the ole mill will be cleaned up and will be dumped off on someone elses back poarch and then suddenly a nice new parking lot appears where fish and birds used to swim. And the river conservation committie and the Army Corps of Engeneers and the EPA and the State of NH had nothing to say about it. Perhaps that is because the right people forgot to mention it to those who ought to know?

I know that businesses must apply for permission to fill in wetlands. Has Hinsdale applied/filed proper permits to fill in those wetlands?

[Mike Mulligan]

I don’t fully know the history of the mill. I knew town people bought the mill off the Erving company. Erving knew there were issues with the property effectively being a chemical/ fuel oil waste dump. It was going to cost erving a ton of money to remediate it. Then the town people effectively sold it to the town. It was a neat way to shift the remediation of the mill...but that kind of thinking been going on for decadesall around our area. The remediation went right out the door when they planned to create a senior center...remember what I told you about the danger of altruism.

Anyways, there was a impossibility of there ever being a real wetland there...it was really a old chemical waste and fuel oil dump that just looked like a wetland.

[BLocal]

Mike Mulligan wrote:

I don’t fully know the history of the mill. I knew town people bought the mill off the Erving company. Erving knew there were issues with the property effectively being a chemical/ fuel oil waste dump. It was going to cost erving a ton of money to remediate it. Then the town people effectively sold it to the town. It was a neat way to shift the remediation of the mill...but that kind of thinking been going on for decadesall around our area. The remediation went right out the door when they planned to create a senior center...remember what I told you about the danger of altruism.
Anyways, there was a impossibility of there ever being a real wetland there...it was really a old chemical waste and fuel oil dump that just looked like a wetland.

Actually there was an association in between. There were a group of Hinsdale "businessmen" that bought the mill. Back then they were saying that they were looking into developing the property, myabe something like Colony Mill. When a study was done and the cost of cleaning up the property was known they decided against it. The people voted and the town then bought it from them - for $1 or something - it always seemed to me like the town was covering someone's bad business decision. But it did get the thing cleaned up at least.

And yeah - doesn't it seem odd that in area where signs are posted about it being a "Water Protection Area" that there are gravel pits and construction debris storage? Could be why when at times you turn the tap on that it smells like a swimming pool is emptying into your glass. The town water used to be good. Not anymore.

[Mike Mulligan]

Actually for accuracy sake, one pump is up on Route 63 and the other is by the sewage plant someplace near the Ashuelot river.

My baby is the American Tissue paper mill in Winchester NH. Man, was some history made there. After I bankrupted them and shutdown the plant, they discovered their underground fuel oil tank was leaking. God only knows how much fuel oil money leaked out the rusty holes. There was a oil sheen leaking down the Ashuelot river for how long is anyone’s guess...I even missed it and I was looking carefully at the white lagoon waste leaking into the river.

As a precaution Hinsdale turned off their Ashuelot river well...it was Hinsdale making a complaint about the sheen that made them remediate the fuel oil pollution in the Winchester mill. God only knows how much the state spent in remediating this site for American Tissue

[BLocal]

Mike Mulligan wrote:

Actually for accuracy sake, one pump is up on Route 63 and the other is by the sewage plant someplace near the Ashuelot river.

Those are for the downtown area. For North Hinsdale there are wells under the Lily Pond area where you were talking to the town employee. There is the large holding tank off of Plain Rd. just past where Monument Rd comes in.(heading toward downtown it is on the left and the dirt road to it is posted with a No Tresspassing sign.

[Former Mill Worker]

Mike Mulligan wrote:

Actually for accuracy sake, one pump is up on Route 63 and the other is by the sewage plant someplace near the Ashuelot river.
My baby is the American Tissue paper mill in Winchester NH. Man, was some history made there. After I bankrupted them and shutdown the plant, they discovered their underground fuel oil tank was leaking. God only knows how much fuel oil money leaked out the rusty holes. There was a oil sheen leaking down the Ashuelot river for how long is anyone’s guess...I even missed it and I was looking carefully at the white lagoon waste leaking into the river.
As a precaution Hinsdale turned off their Ashuelot river well...it was Hinsdale making a complaint about the sheen that made them remediate the fuel oil pollution in the Winchester mill. God only knows how much the state spent in remediating this site for American Tissue

I worked at the mill for over 30 years. I started when it was Ashuelot Paper Co. and stayed when it was sold to American Tissue.
The leaking fuel tank was left buried in the ground, which was what the state and EPA said to do. The lagoon always was treated waster water and was legal and inspected regularly by the EPA & state. Unless you go by the alias of Mehdi Gabayzadeh then it wasn't you that bankrupted the plant. I don't remember your name ever coming up in the fraud case of the former owner.

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y.(AP)— The former chief executive of one of the nation's largest makers of paper products was sentenced Monday to 15 years in prison after being convicted last year of engineering a $300 million fraud in a fruitless bid to save the company from bankruptcy.
In seeking a stiff sentence, prosecutors had compared misdeeds of American Tissue's Mehdi Gabayzadeh with those of better-known white-collar corporate criminals, including Adelphia Communications founder John Rigas and former WorldCom chief Bernard Ebbers.
"The purpose of this sentence is to demonstrate that white-collar crime hurts just as much as blue-collar crime," said U.S. District Court Judge Joanna Seybert.
Gabayzadeh was convicted in April 2005 of all charges in an eight-count indictment, including bank and securities fraud and conspiracy, following a nine-week trial.
Gabayzadeh was ordered to pay $65 million in restitution and sentenced to five years' probation after his prison term.
Gabayzadeh, 61, was accused of swindling banks, financial institutions and investors of nearly $300 million while he was chief executive officer of American Tissue, once the nation's fourth-largest maker of toilet tissue and other paper products. He was accused of inflating sales and inventory in an effort to defraud a group of banks that loaned the company $145 million, and bondholders who in 1999 purchased $165 million in American Tissue debt.
Gabayzadeh's participation in a series of complex deals — including the creation of phony documents indicating the company had sold million-dollar pulp contracts that didn't exist — ultimately led to American Tissue's collapse.
The bogus deals were documented in part to help American Tissue keep open a revolving line of credit it enjoyed with LaSalle Bank of Chicago, prosecutors said. Without the line of credit, the company was doomed to fail, according to Ed Stein, the company's former chief financial officer who testified for the prosecution after pleading guilty to two federal charges of securities and bank fraud in 2003.

[Mike Mulligan]

For Christ sakes I forced you to line your new half finished lagoon. The new embankment cement wall between the street and lagoon, on the hill side, the is the mike mulligan memorial wall, I put it there.

I got the ball rolling, got the Keens sentinel to come down and take picture of the waste entering the stream. I was hammering on the NHDES inspector and was involved with the EPA. I was bragging to them all I am a multimillion dollar nuclear whistleblower and I am coming to get you all.

I don’t care what the EPA or the state inspectors says, it only matters what they disclose openly to the public...it is doing the right thing on our own.

I remember the NHDES inspector saying as we were walking down the sight, he says everyone thinks this is pollution...”you eyes are lying to you”.

It was a wild time back in around 1999 with the NHDES and the juggernaut of the impenetrable “I hate the government” republicanism. The fraud was so blatant and they were so confident they were going to get away with it.

[Mike Mulligan]

I save all my e-mails with the NHDES?

[Mike Mulligan]

I told them and the assistant attorney general, it is simple as heck, they ain’t got the money to fix the lagoon so it doesn’t leak and there are rumors that the same thing is going on up in Berlin NH. I asked down here in Winchester this is peanuts...why don’t they got the money to fix it. That is when the LaSalle bank of Illinois got wind of it and they figured out they were getting scammed, or better yet they knew the music had stopped playing and they wanted to scape goat Gabayzadeh before everyone figured out their lending practices made them bankrupt.

LaSalle was bought out by Bank of American and today they got a anchor or bankruptcy noose around all of our necks.

[Former Mill Worker]

Mike Mulligan wrote:

For Christ sakes I forced you to line your new half finished lagoon. The new embankment cement wall between the street and lagoon, on the hill side, the is the mike mulligan memorial wall, I put it there.
I got the ball rolling, got the Keens sentinel to come down and take picture of the waste entering the stream. I was hammering on the NHDES inspector and was involved with the EPA. I was bragging to them all I am a multimillion dollar nuclear whistleblower and I am coming to get you all.
I don’t care what the EPA or the state inspectors says, it only matters what they disclose openly to the public...it is doing the right thing on our own.
I remember the NHDES inspector saying as we were walking down the sight, he says everyone thinks this is pollution...”you eyes are lying to you”.
It was a wild time back in around 1999 with the NHDES and the juggernaut of the impenetrable “I hate the government” republicanism. The fraud was so blatant and they were so confident they were going to get away with it.

Like I said, if you aren't Medhi you didn't do anything to bring down the mill. Maybe all of us that worked there just imagined all the crooked stuff he was doing. During that time we never heard your name mentioned even once in connection with why the mill had to shut down. Once the fraud was discovered they had no more line of credit to operate and there wasn't a bank left that would give them one.

The wall you're talking about fell into the road on a regular basis during the 30 years I worked there and kept getting fixed. None of us called it "The Mike Mulligan memorial wall" because we never heard of you. Nice try but you have real visions of grandeuer on how the mill closed after Mehdi took it over.

So did a lot of other American Tissue Mill plants, almost 3,000 people lost jobs in their mills all over the country. Unless you went all over the country and helped Mehdi pull his crooked deals you didn't do anything to force them to close.

[Mike Mulligan]

I am getting a little mouthy with the on NHDES site inspector...this guy was so stupid. Me and him had a lot of friction if you know what I mean.

So one day I am looking through my e-mail box. My eye stops on a heading of “terrorist on the banks of the Ashuelot River’. I thought it crap stuff. I opened it up and I begin reading this guys was having trouble with a local individual on the Ashuelot river in Winchester NH. He goes on saying this guy has violent leanings, he is what I consider the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski running around on the banks of the Ashuelot river and you need to protect yourself when you are in the area. I am not sure what this letter is about or who it was from. In the next sentence up pops my name and my address in Hinsdale. I almost pooped my pants.

Then I go back finding out the mysterious e-mail came from the NHDES. I have no idea what is going on. The sender comes from a NHDES computer...and it is CC’d to a bunch of other NHDES people. WTF. I look up the addresses of the people cc'd, most of them are the senior management of the NHDES. I think holy Christ, have they reported me to the staties or the FBI? I was really worried that I was under a FBI investigation for terrorism cause all of the high official names. This was just before 9/11.

I was a bit mouthy to this NHDES idiot. But I think, the only way to attack this is to go for a full frontal assault on the offensive. I write up a little e-mail saying my lawyers finds this attachment grounds for a libel suit. We know it come from a NHDES computer and we know the author is a NHDES employees...you humiliated me in front of a lot of high officials of your organization. I sent it to the commissioner, another lackey in his office and to their legal council. You know, I am just guessing and trying to provoke a response from somebody.

[Mike Mulligan]

I send a copy of it off to the Keene sentinal asking them to ask questions about it. They did ask.

[Mike Mulligan]

Early next morning I get a telephone call from the department head of my NHDES inspector. He is saying sorry and sorry over and over again, he is begging me for forgiveness. With your permission Mr. Mulligan we want to do two things about this. The commissioner of the NHDES would like to give you a call this afternoon, with the author in the room with him...and they want to get to the bottom of what happened and apologize to you. The author of the e-mail would like to come down to your home or meet you at a coffee shop and personally apologize to you and explain what happen. The NHDES commissioner basically later apologized, castigated the inspector, apologized, then castigated somemore...course that give me a direct ear with the head NHDES to talk about Winchester and Berlin. By the end of the hour he was pretty mad at my feed back I was giving him about his agency.

You know I gave him, I know what I am doing, I am a million dollar nuclear whistleblower. You getting some free expensive advice here. Honestly they didn’t know what to do with me. The reality was I knew I was a loser.

I still got that e-mail?

[Mike Mulligan]

Their scenario: The NHDES investigation said they just got a new computer system...the sender hit a “reply to everyone” and it picked up my e-mail address. There was so many holes it is, it was ridiculous.

He said, you know how young men are mike, the author of the e-mail was just joking with his friend and higher ups.

My scenario: they had a internal agency whistleblower with a conscience who knew it was wrong with what they were doing. He sent me the e-mail.

[Old Mill]

Mike Mulligan wrote:

I don’t fully know the history of the mill. I knew town people bought the mill off the Erving company. Erving knew there were issues with the property effectively being a chemical/ fuel oil waste dump. It was going to cost erving a ton of money to remediate it. Then the town people effectively sold it to the town. It was a neat way to shift the remediation of the mill...but that kind of thinking been going on for decadesall around our area. The remediation went right out the door when they planned to create a senior center...remember what I told you about the danger of altruism.
Anyways, there was a impossibility of there ever being a real wetland there...it was really a old chemical waste and fuel oil dump that just looked like a wetland.

so you are confused on two points. the mill was first sold for $1.00 to the Hinsdale Industrial Development Coorporation. They requested and were granted the removal of the property from the tax rolls. They then sold off anything of value including structural elements. They took out loans from HIDC members businesses in an attempt to market what was left of the mill. When they wined and dined all that money away and when the building became a death trap they asked the town to Purchase the mill at a price that would pay off their loans. The town then voted to clean up the site. The wetlands that were filled were not a part of the mill site, the dirt parking lot is on the railroad fill (not the boat launch, but at the opposit end of that strech). Was Louie Major,(HIDC member) head of the selectboard then? The rumor at the time was that 50 gallan barrales of waste were being stored at the old mill and then suddenly disappeared before the mill sold to the town. The old timers in town were really angry about the entiere shady dealings with that mill.

[Mike Mulligan]

Former Mill Worker wrote:

<quoted text>
Like I said, if you aren't Medhi you didn't do anything to bring down the mill. Maybe all of us that worked there just imagined all the crooked stuff he was doing. During that time we never heard your name mentioned even once in connection with why the mill had to shut down. Once the fraud was discovered they had no more line of credit to operate and there wasn't a bank left that would give them one.
The wall you're talking about fell into the road on a regular basis during the 30 years I worked there and kept getting fixed. None of us called it "The Mike Mulligan memorial wall" because we never heard of you. Nice try but you have real visions of grandeuer on how the mill closed after Mehdi took it over.
So did a lot of other American Tissue Mill plants, almost 3,000 people lost jobs in their mills all over the country. Unless you went all over the country and helped Mehdi pull his crooked deals you didn't do anything to force them to close.

I had a friend who worked in the mill and I knew everything going on in that place...and so did the state, the EPA, the attorney generial, the governor, eliments of the FBI, we got an assortment sample wells dug, I showed them all my movies of the plumes going down the river, that site was under a high level of special surveillance for a prolonged period of time.

The NHDES and the EPA asked me if they could have my movies, I said christ no, get off your butts and make them your selves. I showed them everything though?

These redevelopment non profit across the board are the most corrupt organizations I ever seen.