Modifying Permit Denied

My blogs are too long for many of my readers. This blog will be short. I note the article on the PDC Landfill on 2/9/07 credited no reporter. JS reporter Molly Parker was present and appeared to be covering the meeting. The reporter that covers environment, Elaine Hopkins, is gone from the JS. Elaine, who appeared to write articles slanted in opposition to the application to expand, did a reasonable job in the years I’ve know her and I wish her well in the future. Molly Parker who sided with the no voters picked the wrong headline “Landfill Expansion Refused”. What the County Board did was deny a modification to its operating permit which Molly says PDC offered as a backup plan that would only be used if PDC is unsuccessful in reversing the boards siting decision now on appeal. This old news headline should have read “Modifying Permit Refused”. The application permitting expansion is probably a long way from over since 3 of the no voters are gone from the board and as far as I can determine none of the 6 yes voters have changed their position. Expect a long legal battle with costs borne by the taxpayer and all the special criteria offered by PDC off the table.

A few have criticized PDC for not offering these special criteria in their original application. The reason appears to be that PDC did not think the expansion created a hazard to the health of the communities involved. Evidently the Pleasant Valley Water District with deep wells adjacent to the landfill site did not believe the landfill to be a hazard to their water supply as I do not recall any protest from their board in any of the testimony submitted prior to the vote to deny.

For those of you who believed 700 doctors opposed this expansion thru spokesman Gary Zwicky should ask their doctors if they followed the testimony or visited PDC to see what PDC actually does. They do not accept anything and dump it in a hole in the ground as the most radical environmentalists would have you believe. Also read or reread Dr. Zwicky’ testimony which you can find on this site published on 4/13/06 and Dr. Smarts “letter to the editors” dated 4/5/06 also on this site.

The Coulter family who own PDC have stated they will give any group of people interested in see how they handle solid waste a tour. They have stated that Dr. Zwicky did NOT tour their operation but Dr. Smart did.