Daily Archives: April 6, 2006

Peoria County, Peoria Disposal Company

Peoria County poised to deny PDC expansion

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The Peoria County Board took an “initial vote” on the PDC landfill expansion request tonight, and unless some board members change their mind between now and May 3 when they take the final vote, it looks like the application will go down to defeat.

I wasn’t able to attend, but WEEK-TV was there and offered this report on this evening’s news.

The county board can only evaluate the site application based on nine criteria (listed here verbatim from the county’s website):

  1. The facility meets the needs of the area it is intended to serve;
  2. Public health, safety and welfare are protected in the facility design and location;
  3. Care has been taken to minimize the incompatibility of the facility with the character of the surrounding area and property values;
  4. The facility is outside the boundary of the 100-year flood plain;
  5. The facility operating plans minimize the danger to the surrounding area from fire, spills or other operational accidents;
  6. The traffic patterns to and from the facility minimize the impact on existing traffic flow;
  7. An emergency response plan for the facility has been developed to include notification, containment and evacuation procedures in case of an accidental release.
  8. Groundwater protection provisions have been met; and
  9. The facility is consistent with the County’s solid waste management plan.

In their “initial vote” tonight — WEEK called it a “dress rehearsal” — the board approved only seven of the nine. The two they didn’t approve? Numbers 2 & 3 above — the same reasons I was against the application.

Expect to see some heavy lobbying by the Journal Star, Peoria Pundit, and of course PDC over the next few weeks as they try to persuade the board that having a hazardous waste dump next door really won’t affect property values or endanger our health. Maybe they can also try convincing us that pigs can fly.

I’ll be hoping the vote on May 3 is the same as the vote tonight. The board made the right decision.

UPDATE (4/7/06): WMBD-AM Radio and the Journal Star this morning report that the county board voted down three of the criteria — the two WEEK mentioned as well as number 1 above (in other words, they voted the expansion is not needed to accommodate area waste). The vote was 10-7.

Peoria County, Peoria Disposal Company, Uncategorized

Landfill expansion: Common sense says “no”

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I have refrained from commenting on this topic because I had high hopes of wading through the public hearing transcripts, site application, letters recommending passage/denial, etc., etc. But, alas, I simply don’t have the time to do that.

But there are some things I know about the landfill that I don’t need to read 5,000 pages to discover: it’s just outside the city close to residential neighborhoods, it sits over an aquifer that supplies most of our drinking water (or to be precise, “sands hydrolically connected to the San Koty aquifer), and it has hazardous waste buried in it including heavy metals like lead and mercury.

Based on those facts, plus things I’ve read on both sides of the issue (Journal Star, Bill Dennis, PDC, Families Against Toxic Waste, etc.), I think the common sense position is to vote this down. I’m primarily opposed to its placement, not the mere existence of it.

But there is one other thing I’m opposed to, and that’s the fact that they receive most of their hazardous waste from outside this area. Proponents of the hazardous waste landfill like to throw the n-word (NIMBY) at opponents, as if we Peorians are just creating all this hazardous waste and want someone else to take it off our hands.

In reality, the exact opposite is the case.

We’ve been taking on the toxic waste of ten other NIMBY states. 84% of the hazardous waste PDC collects is from outside of Peoria. I think we’ve been more than generous by having all that filth in our “backyards” these past 15 years. It’s time for other cities and states to step up to the plate and take responsibility for their own hazardous waste.

There’s plenty of legal justification for voting this project down based on risk to health and safety and the adverse impact it would have on property values. The county board should deny PDC’s request for expansion.