Author: The Hippo Press

Turtle road

In a March 19 press release the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department announced that the Department’s Nongame and Endangered Wildlife Program was recently awarded a nationally competitive grant to build structures in four locations to help prevent turtles and other vulnerable wildlife from being killed in traffic. “The project will have multiple benefits including reducing wildlife mortality and improving habitat connectivity, safety ….”

QOL score: +1

Comment: The announcement pointed out that turtle populations are especially vulnerable to traffic. “Turtles have a life history that includes low annual nesting success and hatchling survival, late age of initial reproduction (14-20 years), and lengthy adult survivorship (they can live for 70 years or more),” the announcement read.

Slightly more potholes

A March 18 online article by the Concord Monitor reported that more than 1,300 potholes have been repaired in Concord’s streets. While this seems like a huge number, the article reported, it is about the same as in previous years. “According to the Concord city database, from Jan. 1 to March 16, city crews filled 1,309 potholes,” the article read. “Over the same period last year, they filled 1,262 of them. This year’s tally is 3% higher than in 2025.”

QOL score: -1

Comment: In a March 18 online article, New Hampshire Public Radio quoted Gary Stanley, who owns and operates the pothole repair business Mr. Pothole: “‘All these potholes, believe it or not, they start with one small, tiny crack,’ he said. ‘Such is life, is it not?’”

Home heating expensive this year

A March 20 online article by WMUR reported that New Hampshire homeowners pay some of the highest prices in the country for home heating oil. “The New Hampshire Department of Energy says the state ranks second in the nation for heating oil use per capita, with 42% of homes relying on it as their primary heat source,” the article read. WMUR quoted Patrick De Haan of GasBuddy, a popular mobile app that helps drivers locate the lowest gas prices using crowdsourced data: “$5.50 a gallon is certainly possible in the next couple of weeks.”

QOL score: -1

Comment: As of Monday, March 23, the price of a gallon of home heating oil in the Concord-Manchester-Nashua area ranged from $4.89 to $5.49. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average price for heating oil in New Hampshire in February was $3.91.

QOL score last week: 52

Net change: -1

QOL this week: 51

What’s affecting your Quality of Life here in New Hampshire?

Let us know at news@hippopress.com.

Team Police was on fire

As reported by WMUR in a March 15 online article, Team Police won this year’s Battle of the Badges hockey championship. “Team Police reclaimed the victory over Team Fire, winning 4-2,” WMUR reported. The yearly event “features a competitive rivalry between police and fire departments from across New Hampshire,” the article read. “All of the money raised will go to Dartmouth Health Children’s and the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. This year, the event raised $285,000, the largest single-day total in the event’s 18-year history.”

QOL score: +1

Comment: The Battle of the Badges hockey tournament has been played every year since 2008 except in 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the 18 years of the tournament, Team Police has won 11 times; Team Fire has won seven times.

Despite recent flood watch, still a drought

According to a March 12 online article by New Hampshire Public Radio, even with this winter’s snowfall, “Eighty percent of New Hampshire is still in a drought.” NHPR reported that the state’s weather has been relatively dry this year. “While this year may have felt like a classic New England winter, it was the eighth driest December through February since record keeping began in the late 19th century, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.”

QOL score: -1

Comment: NHPR reported, “Conditions have been essentially ‘locked in place’ since winter began and the ground froze, said Ted Diers, who leads the water division at the state Department of Environmental Services. ‘Any snow that falls is on top of the ground, it’s not soaking in,’ he said.”

Not a good time to be a fish

In a March 13 announcement on its website, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department (271-3421, wildlife.nh.gov) wrote that “New Hampshire may experience winter fish kills as ice melts” in the next few weeks. “Fish kills, where large numbers of fish die in a short period of time, are not an uncommon occurrence in the early spring. As the ice recedes, especially from many smaller Granite State waterbodies, there may be dead fish, and most of these occurrences are due to natural processes.”

QOL score: -1

Comment: The problem, NH Fish and Game reported, is a lack of oxygen in frozen-over bodies of water.

QOL score last week: 53

Net change: -1

QOL this week: 54

What’s affecting your Quality of Life here in New Hampshire?

Let us know at news@hippopress.com.