Waste Management, Inc., Waste Management of New Hampshire, Turnkey Recycling & Environmental Enterprises

Waste Management, Inc.’s Turnkey Recycling and Environmental Enterprises (TREE) facility encompasses approximately 1,213 acres, of which 895 acres are available for wildlife habitat. The main vegetative communities on site include mesic transitional hardwood conifer forest, red maple stream bottom floodplain forest/swamp complex, and shallow emergent graminoid marsh.

The TREE site is part of the Isinglass River watershed and is bordered by both the Isinglass River and Cocheco River. Waste Management of New Hampshire (WMNH) participated in successful efforts to incorporate the rivers into the New Hampshire Rivers Management and Protection Program. One of the largest parcels of open space in the Isinglass corridor is on the TREE site, including approximately 100 acres of riverfront property. The area is one of the focus areas for WMNH's Riparian Corridors project. The other lies along the Cocheco River and includes a wildlife-management area within a conservation easement granted to the Stafford River Conservancy. On the southwest, the facility is bordered by the Isinglass River Park, which is owned and maintained by WMNH. The park provides several miles of year-round multiuse trails for non-motorized sports and provides access to the Isinglass River for picnicking, fishing and canoeing. Adjacent to Isinglass Park is a 100-plus-acre forest management area owned by WMNH and managed by a licensed professional forester.

Open areas resulting from the operations, historic use, and/or topography are also found on the TREE site. Free-ranging cows occupy the low areas between the main road and the recycling facility near the closed TLR-II landfill. Additional land, including tracts of floodplain forest, act as buffers around the operations area. Suitable sections are leased to farmers as hay and corn fields. The farmers, in accordance with WMNH's habitat management practices, leave some of their corn rows standing as food and shelter for winter wildlife.

In addition to wildlife habitat projects, WMNH devotes portions of the site to community uses and green initiatives. Community uses include a homeless shelter, a housing development and a number of recreational facilities including a dog park, a model airplane field, a golf driving range and a fishing pond. The TREE site's green initiatives include the production of approximately 10,000-standard-cubic-feet-per-minute of landfill gas. WMNH also partners with the University of New Hampshire (UNH) to transport the remaining landfill gas to UNH for co-generation of electricity and heating energy, making UNH one of the largest "green" campuses in the country. This 12.8 mile pipeline and processing plant are currently under construction and scheduled to be completed in early 2009.

Please check back for more information on the site's Signature event as it becomes available.