Effingham—September 25, 2025—The N.H. Supreme Court has upheld a Superior Court decision allowing a gas station at the former Boyle’s Market on Route 25 in Effingham.
In a one-page decision on September 18, the court said abutting residential property owners William Bartoswicz and Tammy McPherson had not established that the lower court’s decision was “legally erroneous.”
The decision marks the end of a process that began five years ago after Conway businessman Pankaj “Prince” Garg and his Meena LLC company purchased the market for $362,000.
Garg said he planned to pump gas there. The previous owner abandoned that part of the business in 2015 rather than comply with new State environmental regulations.
Meena LLC agent Mark McConkey applied for and received an Effingham ZBA special exception for the gas station in March 2021. Several weeks later, however, the Planning Board sent the approval back. It said the Groundwater Protection Ordinance prohibited gas stations at the site.
The Meena LLC site is a former gravel pit comprised of highly transmissive soil that sits above a major recharge area of the Ossipee Aquifer, the region’s primary source of drinking water.
Abutting residential property owners and conservation groups aligned against the plan after the ZBA granted relief to Meena LLC by approving a gas station variance. Meena LLC told town officials the gas station would be “state of the art” and safe.
Officials from the 11 towns that rely on the Aquifer joined the debate. Ossipee officials said they supported the gas station despite entreaties from Bartoswicz and McPherson, both Ossipee residents.
Municipal Board heads from Freedom, Tamworth, Madison, Sandwich, Eaton and Porter, Maine, were among those who urged Effingham to deny the plan as an environmental threat.
While the debate was taking place, Meena LLC agent and real estate developer Jim Doucette authorized the installation of underground gas tanks without site plan approval. Doucette said he took responsibility for the decision.
Two years later, however, Planning Board alternate member Michael Cahalane, who chaired the Select Board at the time the tanks were installed, said he and his fellow selectmen authorized it.
The town’s proceedings on the gas station were often technical. Meena LLC replaced the McConkey Construction Company after its plans received low marks in an independent third-party technical analysis. The replacement company, Horizons Engineering, fared little better as the hearings stretched on for months, and then years.
The proceedings were also contentious. After the Zoning Officer said Meena LLC’s convenience store was no longer protected as a grandfathered non-conforming use, Planning Board Chair George Bull challenged the finding publicly at a Select Board meeting.
Meena LLC’s agents took particular aim at Ossipee Aquifer expert Dr. Robert Newton, who called the proposed site “the worst possible location” for a gas station. Newton submitted a report on his findings to the Planning Board after being asked to do so.
Meena LLC attorney Matthew Johnson attempted to prevent Newton from speaking to the board, saying the geoscientist had “zero relevant experience” and “no standing to speak.”
Mark Lucy of Horizons Engineering called Newton “reckless” and “not credible” after Newton explained to the board why he believed the Horizons plan would “fail to protect the public’s health, safety and welfare in four critical ways.”
The Planning Board proceedings reverted briefly to the ZBA in early 2024. It was during one of those meetings that Effingham Select Board member Chris Seamans attempted to shout down one of the speakers. Seamans eventually took his seat but continued to make loud distracting noises, according to the Conway Daily Sun.
Neighbors of the Meena LLC property reported that construction equipment was at the site this week, apparently starting work to re-open the store and pump gas.
A complete archive and chronology of the Meena proceedings can be found at this link.
The people of Effingham just got a slap in the face! They’re ordinance is worth less than the paper it’s written on.
The owner’s design for stormwater (like the rain event yesterday) includes a simple oil water separator (which removes the oil from the water), However, the stormwater from the gas station also includes chemicals from gas (MBTE, etc) which are not captured in the oil water separator. Those chemicals go right in to the ground … the sink faucets of homeowners and filtration systems like BRITA do not have filtration that extracts VOC’s (volatile organic chemicals).
By not engineering a “closed loops sytem”, or towns building a municipal water supply (all nearby wells are private wells), or including a fully lined retention basin, this gas station puts the aquifer at risk, and, more importantly, builds in systemic risk to homeowners who live down stream (between the gas station and Leavitt Bay/Ossipee Lake).
We don’t allow open sewage to spill directly in to the ground, so why do we allow gas components in to our ground? The ground water flows north (in the direction of Ossipee Lake) and the closest homeowner’s well is just 300 feet away.
This is a classic case showing the peril of town officials doubling down on a mistake instead of addressing it logically. You become increasingly irrational as you dig a deeper and deeper hole, trying harder at every step to rationalize that what you’re doing is right instead of wrong. Our towns are only attractive places to live if the people we elect to keep us safe actually keep us safe. But don’t blame Effingham officials alone for this circus. They were either elected or appointed by the people who were elected. Plenty of blame to share.
Whoa!!!
Now that’s a big
“F” ingham suprise.
Curious. Wasn’t the defendants attorney an elected state official. Asking for a friend.
+++Earlier this week, construction at the Meena gas station site in Effingham, has once again commenced. As the sitework progresses, the proposed gas station plans contain several violations of DES State Requirements, pertaining to gas stations, Violations of NFPA requirements relating to Emergency Vehicle Access, AND numerous Violations of specific Town of Effingham Zoning Ordinance Requirements. Concerns for these violations were brought to the attention of the Effingham Planning Board numerous times, over 3½ years ago, both in written correspondences as well as presented in.person during several Planning Board Meetings and Public Hearings.
The Effingham Planning Board, The Effingham Select Board, and the Effingham Zoning Enforcement Officer are all acutely aware of the specifics of these violations. The failure of the Town of Effingham to respond to these ongoing violations continues to place hundreds of household”s individual wells, (water supplies), at risk!
The most critical residences being two abbutters adjacent to the site, which also happen to be within the town of Ossipee.
The primary mandate of the Effingham Planning Board, as noted in the Town’s Zoning Ordinance, is to protect the Health, Safety and Welfare of its Citizens, as well as, (among other critical concerns), protecting the Groundwater Resources of the Town, which are part of a much larger multi-town aquifer, nine towns total, including towns in Maine.
As we are all aware, the Ossipee Aquifer provides clean drinking water for all those Citizens who reside over of it. The ultimate authority, obligation and requirement of the Town of Effingham is to provide these protections. While these violations continue to remain outstanding…..the Town’s failure in their duties to the Citizens continues.
We also know, as a community, we can do better than this to protect both out Citizens, and our clean groundwater!