Resident brings issues with landfill before county board
By Deb GauMARSHALL - County landfill issues came to the front of the Lyon County Commissioners' meeting on Tuesday, as area resident Don DeLanghe addressed the county board.
DeLanghe said blowing trash from the landfill has cost his farm productivity and has caused drainage issues, and that the county wasn't doing enough to control litter.
"I'm not trashing your area up. You're trashing my area up," DeLanghe said. When he bought his farm 20 years ago, DeLanghe told commissioners, the landfill "was a small dump. You turned it into a rezoned landfill."
DeLanghe presented commissioners with the summary of an August 22 meeting between neighbors of the landfill, Lyon County Engineer Suhail Khanwar and county environmental director Paul Henriksen.
The summary included the neighbors' solutions for litter control, including monetary penalties for landfill staff every time they collect garbage from neighboring fields or yards, or compensation for neighbors of the landfill.
County Board Chairman Mark Goodenow said the county does work to keep litter under control.
"We do go back and collect the garbage," Goodenow said. No containment system would be perfect, he said.
Commissioner Phil Nelson suggested the county could look at measures to encourage people to use fewer plastic bags, garbage shredding or other solutions to keep trash from blowing away, but DeLanghe said that would do nothing to address his problems now.
"Lip service is all we get out here," he said. DeLanghe turned down a proposal from Goodenow to have an engineer find the source of his drainage problems, with the provision that if the county was found not to be at fault, DeLanghe would pay for the engineer's fees.
DeLanghe had questions later in the meeting during Henriksen's request to purchase more alternate daily cover for the landfill. DeLanghe wanted to know how thick the layer of cover provided was.
Henriksen and Goodenow explained that a chemical mixture was added to water and sprayed over the landfill once a day, usually at the end of the day. The mixture sticks the top layer of garbage together and hardens to keep it from blowing away. Henriksen said the layer formed was about a quarter inch thick.
Goodenow said the chemical was a legal alternative to putting six inches of soil cover over the landfill. Henriksen added that on days when the wind is too strong, the chemical cover isn't effective and the landfill uses soil cover instead.
The commissioners also approved a five-year plan for the county highway department, after hearing a request from engineer Trent Bruce on behalf of the city of Minneota. Minneota is looking at a $2.2 million project in 2010 to replace failing sanitary sewers along North Jefferson Street.
The project would prevent sewage from flowing into the Yellow Medicine River, Bruce said. The project coincides with an planned overlay on State Highway 68 through Minneota in 2011, Bruce said. MnDOT would pay part of the project costs, leaving Minneota with a $1.4 million bill.
Since North Jefferson Street is part of CSAH 3, Bruce said Minneota was requesting $300,000 to $400,000 to help pay for a portion of the project.
Khanwar said allocating that money would likely shift other planned highway projects around, but it could be done.
"It's not disastrous. It will change some of the plans we have," Khanwar said.
The board voted to approve the five-year plan as it was, but noted that changes to allocate funds for the Minneota project could be made in 2009.
The board also revisited a proposal to change to 65-gallon single sort recycling containers. The two main questions facing the board, Henriksen said, were whether the county should buy its own containers, and whether to re-negotiate its contract with Waste Management or start over.
General consensus of the commissioners was to stick with Waste Management, whose contract with the county runs another three years, and renegotiate the recycling program.
The commissioners voted to approve parcels of forfeited land for sale on Dec. 17, after discussion of two listed properties that were still occupied. One house is located in Balaton, and another in Tracy, Lyon County Auditor Paula VanOverbeke said. Both properties were forfeited due to unpaid back taxes, she said.
Commissioners discussed whether to proceed with notices of eviction for the two properties. The county board had been through that process once recently, with a forfeited home in Garvin. Goodenow said that time, the process had stretched over several years in an attempt to give the occupant time to address the situation. He didn't think the county should wait that long this time, he said.
"Our experience last time was we waited and waited and ended up with the same result," Goodenow said.
The board voted to send notice of the sale and eviction to the occupants of both homes on the current list.
