Planning commission postpones landfill decision

PALMER — About 100 people turned out to comment on a proposed landfill before the borough planning commission Dec. 1.

Central Monofill Services Inc. (CMS) has filed a second round of permit applications after failing to obtain a permit in 2013 over concerns about the company’s application for a permit to turn a former gravel pit into a monofill — essentially a special kind of landfill for surplus construction debris — along the Parks Highway.

The landfill item was postponed because spoken testimony ran until 11:30 p.m., and because only four members of the planning commission were present, down from the full compliment of seven members, according to development services manager Alex Strawn.

Borough staff — the final yes-or-no recommendation is usually conducted by planning officer Eileen Probasco — have recommended the site for approval based on the documentation submitted by the company showing the impact to surrounding ground water will be minimal based on the means by which the monofill is constructed.

The company has faced organized opposition from residents in the surrounding area, who say the presence of the material could damage their quality of life, and some who are suspicious about the company’s motives after the company appealed six borough citations issued in 2013 through the state court system. Their opposition received a shot in the arm Nov. 25, when the Palmer city council unanimously approved a resolution asking the commission to reject the application.

Company officials say the Palmer location would allow trucks full of materials destined for an Anchorage processing site to return with material for long term storage, and that the site could potentially benefit the community by providing a retail source for secondhand construction materials, as well as jobs.

Opponents generally say the risk to their aquifer, already punctured by previous gravel pit activity at the site, outweighs potential economic benefits to the site.

Some of the latest round of criticism centers around reams of technical data supplied by CMS as part of its second round of applications.

Jim Munter, an Anchorage-based hydrogeologist, submitted a two-page fax pointing out three areas where the company’s assessment of the site was potentially flawed. First, consultants for the company listed the site as “semi-arid,” a finding that conflicted with previous US Geological Survey findings in the area, which classify the climate as “transitional between maritime and continental climates,” according to Munter’s written testimony.

“The record still contains significant technical deficiencies that preclude supporting the statement found in the borough findings,” Munter wrote.

The classification is important because of the amount of rainfall on the site, Munter wrote. Semi-arid climates experience little rainfall and groundwater reserves aren’t recharged, where transitional climates can receive instances of a lot of rainfall, and groundwater reserves are recharged.

USGS figures show 1.4 inches of water annually will recharge the site’s ground water, meaning about a million gallons of water will flow through the site annually.

“This is a significant volume of water to percolate through the waste material and enter the groundwater system,” Munter wrote.

Models run by Terrasat, the consultant hired to perform the analysis, also underestimate potential groundwater contamination, and a silt cap over the site should be different than the one provided by the consultant. In addition, the consultant assumes compacted and buried waste will be stable, which may not be the case, Munter wrote.

Not all the commentary is so obscure.

Bill Quantick owns a $400,000 house in the Canoe Lake subdivision. He’s more worried about potential damage to his pocket book.

“I have an investment here,” he said. “My investment is my home, and that’s worth $400,000.”

In addition, the borough stands to lose money by the presence of another private landfill in the area, which puts competitive pressure on the borough landfill, meaning the borough has to raise scale rates to keep up, Quantick said.

“That’s why our costs are going up,” he said.

He is also not reassured by a $5-million insurance policy for the site, which won’t cover the costs of numerous expensive houses in the area, Quantick said. The policy also won’t transfer in the event that the property is sold, Quantick continued. He believes the monofill should go somewhere else.

“They don’t have a contingency plan in case something goes wrong,” he said. “If they sell it, their liability is gone.”

The next meeting of the planning commission will be 6 p.m. Dec. 15.