Pease Development Authority to end contract with Grimmel Industries

The board of directors of the Pease Development Authority (PDA), a Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based government agency that oversees the Market Street Terminal in Portsmouth, has voted to terminate a contract it had with Grimmel Industries. Under the contract, Grimmel, a scrap metal recycling company, has operated at a 3-acre site where it transloaded scrap metal to vessels at the terminal.

The PDA’s board voted unanimously to discontinue  the contract with Grimmel after its most recent contact ends  ec. 31, 2014. In addition to ending the contract, the PDA has requested that the company close down and clean up the 3-acre site by the end of the contract.

The PDA says it has given Grimmel six month’s notice to allow for an orderly termination of the company’s bulk cargo activities, the removal of stored materials and equipment and restoration of the licensed premises.

The PDA originally authorized an agreement with Grimmel Industries Jan. 24, 2002, to operate at the PDA’s Market Street Terminal. Following a number of one-year contracts, Aug. 20, 2009, Grimmel requested and was granted a fourth amendment to its license and operating agreement dated Aug. 1, 2005. Additionally, the company signed a five-year extension of its contract in 2009.

Geno Marconi, director of the PDA’s Ports and Harbors, says the PDA has decided to not negotiate with the company to continue the contract. “It was strictly a business decision,” Marconi says. “The PDA wanted to diversify the usage at the port.”

Since operating at the state-owned port facility, Grimmel has come under steady criticism over the dust generated at the site as well as noise and other pollution created by the company’s operations.

According to a local report, in April 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Grimmel’s business leached mercury, PCBs (polychlorinated biphynols) and other contaminants into New Hampshire’s Piscataqua River.

Grimmel announced in response that it would spend $200,000 to $300,000 to upgrade the operation, while the PDA said it would spend $500,000 to $700,000 for related stormwater upgrades.