New Hampshire

Environmental protection

State agencies concerned with environmental protection include the Fish and Game Department, the Department of Resources and Economic Development (DRED), and the Department of Environmental Services (DES). DRED oversees the state's forests, lands and parks and, in the late 1980s, DRED was the lead state agency in the acquisition and long-term protection of open space. DES was created in 1987, consolidating several preexisting commissions and boards into four divisions which protect the environmental quality of air, groundwater, the state's surface waters, and solid waste. In the 1990s, DES has focused on such issues as ground-level ozone, landfill closures, groundwater remediation and protection of lakes, rivers, and other wetlands in New Hampshire. In 2003, New Hampshire had 91 hazardous waste sites listed in the Environmental Protection Agency's database, 18 of which were on the National Priorities List. In 2001, the state received $41,926,000 in federal grants from the Environmental Protection Agency; EPA expenditures for procurement contracts in New Hampshire that year amounted to just $1,000.