Health and safety committee sends landfill issue to full board without disagreement

by Richard Lamb, Advance Editor

Although commissioners Mike Darga and Mike Grohowski agreed that Wolverine?s application for a landfill permit had met all requirements of a 13-point plan, the two members of the public health and safety committee withheld their recommendation. They will save that when they give a report at Friday?s meeting of the Presque Isle County Board of Commissioners.

Chairman Carl Altman sent Wolverine?s request to construct a type-three landfill to the committee level, after a committee of the whole heard an explanation of and comments on the permit request two weeks ago in a meeting that overflowed to the district courtroom.

Wolverine is seeking the board to approve an ?application for a determination of consistency with the Presque Isle Solid Waste Plan,? the next step in getting approval to construct a type-three landfill. If that approval is gained, Wolverine will apply to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for a permit to construct the landfill nearly one mile east of the proposed power plant.

COMMISSIONER DARGA, the chairman of the committee, asked prosecuting attorney Rick Stieger to explain to the 25 people in the commissioners? room why there would be no public comment accepted at the 30-minute committee meeting, which was conducted September 16. ?We are a committee. We are not deliberating. We are not making any decisions tonight. We are only to go through this criteria and take a recommendation back to our meeting on September 25,? Darga explained.

?There will be no deliberating here today and no public comment.? Stieger explained that since it is a committee meeting, case law and statue makes it clear that Darga was correct to exclude public comments. He said because there was no quorum of the board and no decisions would be rendered public comment is not needed.

As for the 13-point list, Darga said most of the points are easily decided in favor of the applicant, Wolverine Power, which proposes the landfill approximately one mile easterly of its proposed 600-megawatt coal-fired power plant. ?Most of these are pretty cut and dried, as far as meeting the criteria of our solid waste plan,? he said. Darga said a tour of the proposed site proved helpful, as he and Grohowski had the chance for a firsthand look.

?It is out there in the middle of nowhere,? Darga said. Darga and Grohowski agreed that the landfill would be far enough away from the airport, public schools, roads, lakes, perennial streams, as specified in the first three points of the plan. The landfill would be entirely on private grounds, now part of the Calcite quarry.

AT THIS POINT of the meeting, Darga asked zoning administrator Jim Zakshesky to explain if the landfill would be acceptable in regards to zoning of the area. ?When this power plant was originally applied for, the landfill was part of the original application that was approved by the planning commission at a 2006 meeting,? Zakshesky said.

He explained the area was zoned as extractive industry, and a landfill was allowed in this zone, as required by point number 11 of the 13 criteria. ?There has also been the question of whether they can move their landfill site from their original proposal. Their original proposal does state that there is leeway for site movement, pending state, local and federal guidelines,? he said.

?That was a big question at our Tuesday (September 8) meeting,? Darga said, indicating that he was satisfied by the answer. Darga and Grohowski agreed that the application meets the criteria of having the landfill above the 100-year floodplain (point number four) and that the landfill will not be located in a wetlands or farmlands (points number five and six). GROHOWSKI SAID he was concerned with the wetlands issue when he first reviewed the plan.

?That?s why I asked Ken Bradstreet (Wolverine?s director of community and government affairs) to give us a firsthand look at the facility and the proposed landfill site and see the proximity of the wetlands ourselves,? Grohowski said. What he found didn?t qualify as a wetland, rather a spot created by the mining process over the years.

?It was never a natural wetland as we know wetlands in this area. It was not something that was around 100 years ago, 50 years ago or even 30 years ago,? he said. The commissioners also agreed that the landfill is not in a sensitive environmental area (point number seven).

?This is all located in an area that was at one time mined out quarry. Since then, a lot of the material that is on that site is strippings, what they took off from the overburden of non-usable quarrying material, and placed it in a place where they were no longer going to extract limestone,? Grohowski said. Point eight focused on groundwater recharge or wellhead protection areas, terms defined by the DEQ and the United States Geological Survey. ?This is all going to be built on overburden. So this is on top and in the middle of nowhere, so there is no seepage of any rock walls or any dead wells there,? Darga said. ?I think that can be checked.?

Grohowski and Darga agreed on point number nine, which said the landfill cannot be built on grounds declared part of a ?designated historic or archaeological area as defined by the state historical officer.? SINCE THE land is privately owned, point number 10 is met which said the landfill could not be built on public land. The commissioners covered point number 11 earlier in the meeting. Point 12 called for a statement signed by the operator to cooperate with the county on any recycling effort, even though it will not be open to the public. Wolverine?s letter is part of the application. Point 13 called for Wolverine to maintain an all-weather ?Class A? road to the landfill.

?Both of these last two letters are in the application itself. That is a signed statement,? Bradstreet said. When the committee finished checking each point, Darga offered a closing statement. ?We were told by our board to come here and bring it back to the board with our recommendation, not our approval, but our recommendations. Until next Friday, Mike will have time to think and I will have time to think and we will take our notes and deliberate together with the full board. Then we can give our answer,? Darga said. ?For those who are looking for answers now or want to as

k questions, that is not going to happen. You can save those for a later date.?

DARGA SAID the meeting ran quickly because the entire board had a chance to look at the application earlier and the tour of the proposed site helped answer some questions he had. Commissioners Kris Sorgenfrei toured the site last Friday with Bradstreet, Wolverine engineer Hank Hoffman and planning commission member Jerry Counterman. Tom Karas, of the Michigan Land Use Institute of Traverse City asked Darga if anyone else besides Wolverine could schedule a meeting with Darga?s committee before the next commissioners? meeting.

?I?m not going to say no at this time, but it would have to be a meeting similar to this. I would have to have notice and have it published at the clerk?s office,? Darga said. Friday?s meeting is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. at the county courthouse.

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