New Hampshire Ball Bearings (USA, a division of NMB USA, a division of Minebea Group Ltd., Japan) Hitech Division was recently recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at its 2004 Performance Track Conference. NHBB Hitech was one of only nine U.S. businesses singled out for awards this year.
Built in 1946, NHBB Hitech Division's 225,000 square foot facility in Peterborough, New Hampshire, employs over 450 people manufacturing aerospace and high-precision ball and roller bearings. Applications include inch and metric dimension bearings up to 12" OD for gas turbines, precision actuators, machine tool spindles, heart pumps, missile guidance systems, and aerospace gearboxes and transmissions. Parent Minebea is the world's largest manufacturer of miniature and precision instrument bearings, with 39 facilities in 10 countries and a 65% world market share of ball bearings 22mm and under.
Launched in 2000, the National Environmental Performance Track Program is a voluntary public-private program. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson explained the program's members go far beyond simple regulatory compliance: "Performance Track members are at the forefront of innovation and environmental stewardship, fundamentally strengthening the relationship between business and government."
For 2004, NHBB's Hitech Division received the first-ever Director's Award for Mentoring. The company's six-month Environmental Management Systems Users Group Project, said the EPA, is the basis for the award. The mentoring program promotes shared learning and networking experiences among Performance Track members.
The EPA said, "Performance Track members' history of strong compliance, commitment to measurable improvement and effectiveness in environmental management distinguishes them from other regulated facilities."
NHBB Hitech in Peterborough, certified ISO 14001, has received a number of environmental awards and recognition since it embraced environmental sensitivity in the early 1990's.
In the intervening years, the facility reduced harmful air emissions by 97%, eliminated use of Class 1 ozone depleting products, reduced water consumption by 75%, cut its hazardous waste stream by 92%, and other activities. For example, Peterborough recycles its solvents via distillation and recycles almost 2 million pounds of solid material -- not only high-value scrap bearing steel, but also cadmium plate, office supplies, lighting, batteries, cardboard, and aluminum cans. Even NHBB's purchasing system is designed to support a buy-recycled initiative.
NHBB's environmental leadership today is all the more remarkable in light of its history as a gross polluter -- as was most every bearing manufacturer -- through the 1970's.
For New Hampshire Ball Bearings, the nadir came in late 1982. The Peterborough city water supply was found dangerously contaminated, eventually traced to runoff from the NHBB property. The city's South Municipal Water Supply Well, near NHBB, was shut down in December 1982. The EPA placed it on the Long-Term National Priorities List and it became one of New Hampshire's 19 Superfund sites. Studies and early remediation work took until 1990, when NHBB was served with a unilateral order to implement the designed remedies. Eventually, the EPA determined much of the land the plant sits on, including wetlands in front of it, are so contaminated and the geology is such they cannot be reasonably remediated anytime in the foreseeable future.
Contaminants found in the water and soil will be familiar to most bearing manufacturers: 1,1,1-tricholoroethane, 1,1,-dichloroethylene, 1,1-dicholoroethane, toluene, and vinyl chloride.
Now, after 20 years and millions of dollars in cleanup efforts, soil removal, sediment removal, and other work, three groundwater extraction and treatment facilities remain operating on or near the NHBB property; more than 1.4 billion gallons of groundwater have been treated since they went into operation in 1984. The systems pump, cleanse, then return the water underground. With the plant and surrounding land under an EPA, "Technical Impracticability Waiver," that area's water runoff is sealed. Peterborough and NHBB have agreed to severe zoning and water use restrictions around the property which will remain in place long into the future.
Today, water quality in Peterborough's South Well is once again approaching safe levels. The city of Peterborough and NHBB, in fact, are assessing when the South Well might be reactivated as a city water source.
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