Mt. Sunapee Parking Lot Expansion and Wastewater Treatment Lagoons

Current Actions

We are partnering with the Newbury Conservation Commission to collect additional water quality data downstream from the septic effluent lagoons.
The Newbury Conservation Commission will hold a general informational meeting on Monday, May 19, 2025, at 6 PM at the Newbury Town Offices. This meeting is open to the public.
We are working with the Newbury Conservation Commission to compile and analyze historical documents and data about this issue which dates back to the 1970s. Click here to view a summary document.
LSPA has a seat on the Mount Sunapee Advisory Commission, which will meet on Tuesday, June 3, 2025, at 10 AM at the Newbury Town Offices. This meeting is open to the public, but is not a public hearing.
We hosted a stakeholder meeting of conservation leaders at LSPA's Center for Lake Studies on Tuesday, May 6, 2025 to discuss concerns about the wastewater treatment system at the Mt. Sunapee Resort.

April 2025 - Concerns Remain About the Mt. Sunapee Parking Lot Expansion and Wastewater Treatment Lagoons

LSPA and The Newbury Conservation Commission (NCC) remain extremely concerned about the water quality impacts of the outdated and poorly functioning wastewater treatment system in use at the Mt. Sunapee Resort since 1972. The system stores effluent from septic tanks in a series of unlined lagoons. It uses a spray irrigation system to spray effluent into three vegetated fields, but some of the spray goes into natural wetlands. Because the lagoons are unlined, they leak an unknown amount of effluent into groundwater and into Beck Brook, which flows into Lake Sunapee at the State Beach. It is the oldest version of this type of system currently in use in New Hampshire, and several similar facilities in the state have been denied Department of Environmental Services (DES) permits. Yet a Groundwater Discharge Permit has been granted for Mt. Sunapee Resort’s facility despite the fact that it has regularly exceeded the required water quality standards in the permit for Total Suspended Solids (TSS) on over 48 occasions (62% of samples from 2018 – 2024) and has exceeded the Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) standard at least 15 times (approximately 20% of samples from 2018 – 2024). Data from these monitoring well reports are publicly available on DES’s OneStop system.

June 2024 - LSPA’s Response to Mt. Sunapee’s Annual Operating Plan

The Mount Sunapee Advisory Commission held a meeting on June 11, 2024 to discuss the Mount Sunapee Annual Operating Plan (AOP) which details a parking lot expansion at the Mount Sunapee Resort (Draft Minutes from the June 11, 2024 MSAC meeting). Executive Director, Elizabeth Harper, sits on the Mount Sunapee Advisory Commission and was able to not only attend the meeting in June, but also to provide a position statement. The position statement included the concerns raised by LSPA and other local stakeholders including the Newbury Conservation Commission and the Friends of Mount Sunapee. In the statement Elizabeth Harper recommended that the parking lot expansion should be placed on hold until the following occur:

The integrity of the dam has been thoroughly evaluated by a qualified engineer.
Extensive water quality sampling has been conducted on the seepage from the dam.
An end-of-life plan is in place for the existing outdated wastewater treatment system.
A comprehensive stormwater management plan is in place for the area under lease.
Public hearings are held to allow for input from the community.