Club 3000 president: ‘We’re not giving up hope’
The Times-Reporter
COLUMBUS - The Environmental Review Appeals Commission has issued a 99-page ruling in favor of Countywide Recycling and Disposal Facility in a case challenging the landfill’s permit for expansion, but further appeals are in the works.
In a 3-0 decision last week, the Franklin County-based commission rejected claims by the appellants – the Stark-Wayne-Tuscarawas Joint Solid Waste District, the village of Bolivar and environmental group Club 3000 – that the Ohio EPA erred in granting an expansion permit in 2003 to the landfill, owned by Republic Services Inc. of Florida. The appellants said in their filings that problems with the engineering of Countywide and the danger of groundwater contamination should have led the EPA to deny the expansion permit.
Countywide had gone ahead with construction of new waste cells despite the pending appeal.
“We were always confident,” Tim Vandersall, the landfill’s general manager, said Tuesday.
“It just goes to show that the expansion meets all the EPA requirements.”
Vandersall stuck by previous commitments to voluntarily forego some vertical expansion allowed under the permit until landfill officials are sure they have resolved problems related to odors and settling.
Members of Bolivar Village Council already have decided to appeal the commission’s ruling, and Club 3000 President Dick Harvey said his group also is looking to challenge the decision.
“We’re still not giving up hope,” Harvey said. “We’re still not done serving this community.”
However, Vandersall said the ruling proved claims about engineering deficiencies and dangers to groundwater were unfounded.
“When the solid waste district appealed this permit, they said they wanted one more independent party to review the permit. ... I think any further appeals that are done on this permit are just a waste of money,” Vandersall said.
Also rejected by the commission was an attempt in November 2006 by the village of Bolivar to suspend the appeal because “circumstances on the ground at Countywide landfill ... have so fundamentally physically altered and changed, that it is clear that the facts upon which the application to construct had been filed must now be re-evaluated by the Director” – reference to a depression that formed on the surface of the landfill and to foul odors caused by a reaction of water with aluminum dross taken in by the landfill years ago.
The commission stated that “none of the parties knew of the problems that would ultimately occur in the existing portion of Countywide, nor were those problems documented at the time the expansion PTI (permit) was applied for or issued.
“ ... Even if we were to find that the Director should have known or anticipated these future events at Republic’s existing facility, the Commission notes that Appellants’ allegations ... fail to demonstrate a scientifically valid link tying the conditions at the existing portion of the facility to the expansion PTI.”
Being rebuffed by the commission hasn’t taken the fight out of Countywide’s opponents, however.
“I really believe that the truth will eventually come out, and we’re not done with this battle,” Harvey said.
