The Polk County Commissioners will face a big decision sometime in the next year between the costs of continuing with the landfill as proposed or significantly shortening the life of the landfill. The need for the discussion and decision came out of the landfill’s permitting process during which the State of Minnesota discovered a state threatened plant species, called a Sterile Sedge, on the landfill property last year.
Environmental Services Director Jon Steiner said that the plant is generally associated with wetlands not found around the landfill, but rather than consider it an anomaly, the state is calling it rare, making it of high value to protect. “As part of our permit, we’re required to go in and do a flora and fauna study,” said Steiner. “We looked at the different insects and plant communities out there. They are checking for anything rare, threatened, endangered. There are the usual suspects that are federally protected, but the state has its own list. It was all in conjunction with a wetland delineation we had to do. To fill a wetland, you have to do that flora, fauna study. We found some surprising, unexpected results out there. There is a state-protected plant out there called a Sterile Sedge. It’s associated with a wetland that isn’t on the property. They’ve decided that rather than it’s an anomaly, it’s rare and became a high-value thing to protect.”
Steiner said the process from the state for how to handle the property with the Sterile Sedge on it is murky, and it’s something he wanted to make the commissioners aware of as it’s a decision for elected officials. “There are restrictions on what you can do, or you have to abate it,” said Steiner. “The process for that is pretty murky. The bottom line, as we progress is the cost of doing this work, could be very expensive. We’ve run into some opposition from the regulatory side about doing anything that would impact that plant species out there despite some of the state agencies being okay with it. I wanted them to understand that there is an option that doesn’t necessarily avoid having to deal with it but puts it off and the pros and cons of doing that. We have an advisory board meeting with the other five counties where we will explain this to them, get their input and bring it back to the board without them being caught off guard or put on the spot. There are some long-term ramifications to whichever process they want to go down. That’s a decision for elected officials.”
Steiner told the board that abating the property would require the purchasing of about 40 acres of wetland credits, which would be approximating $600,000 plus a penalty called from the DNR for the “taking” of the Sterile Sedge which would likely push the cost over $1 million. The second option would be to significantly limit the life of the landfill by building on fewer acres. “The first option is how we applied for the permit and how it was issued,” said Steiner. “At the rate, we’re filling the landfill, that would give us over 50 years of capacity, so the future of the landfill would be protected for 50 years without the issues of the wetlands to make some long-term decisions for Polk County and the other counties that are partnered for us. The other option is to bring the footprint of the landfill back (cut approximately in half), so it terminates before we get to those plant communities. That gets us out about 20 years, and we avoid all those expensive things. A lot can change in 20 years, but 20 years isn’t that long when you’re dealing with 20-year contracts, and it leaves the long-term issues unresolved. Although a lot of us won’t be here to deal with it, you want to have your long-term stuff in order. There are the short-term benefits and the long-term benefits one way, and a short-term penalty and a long-term penalty the other way. There is no right or wrong answer. It’s just how do we want to proceed.”
The proposed alternate option would still require some wetland credits to be purchased. Steiner estimated about $90,000 worth of wetland credits to the board, adding there wouldn’t be additional penalties for “taking” the Sterile Sedge because that area doesn’t have the plant. Besides the physical footprint reduction that could occur for the landfill, Steiner said there would also be an impact on how high the landfill can be built up, further impacting the life of the landfill. “It gets to be pretty big, especially when looking at it in terms of years of capacity,” said Steiner. “With the estimates, we have if we went 50-60 years of capacity on about 40 acres of ground. If we shrink that back to 20 acres, we’re only going to get about 20 years. We’re shrinking the capacity by about 50 percent.”
Steiner also said a decision would have to be reached within the next year or two before the landfill expands into the additional wetlands. “We are in phase 13 right now,” said Steiner. “That has a life of another one to two years, and then we’ll go to phase 14 to the east of it, which won’t impact any wetlands. That has a three to four-year life expectancy on it, and some of that is tricky because you have construction seasons to deal with. We’re looking at a five to six-year time frame before we’re out of space. The decision has to made well before that because you have the permitting and construction schedules to go through. We’re looking at having to have a decision made this year and if not this year, then early next year.”
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