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HomeMy WebLinkAboutJanuary 20, 1986 COW Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20, 1986 A Special Committee of the Whole Meeting was called to order p g at 7 :05 p.m. , in the Council Chambers of City Hall. The meeting was called to order by Mayor Verbic. Members present : Councilmen Andersen, Gilliam, Moylan, Shales, Van De Voorde, Waters and Mayor Verbic. Absent : None. Discussion re Northwest Municipal Conference Landfill. Mayor Verbic: The one item on the agenda tonight is a presentation by the Northwest Municipal Conference regarding the proposed landfill on Bartlett Road. With us tonight is the Executive Director, Bill Grams, and Bill Ahrens, Mayor of Rolling Meadows, and President of the Northwest Municipal Conference. Mayor Ahrens : On behalf of the Mayors, Managers and elected officials of the Conference, I want to thank you for the opportunity to present our solid waste management program, and for providing the opportunity for the Conference to receive the invaluable imput from you, the City of Elgin. Indeed, this may be the most important statement I have ever made as the President of the Northwest Municipal Conference, and I cannot impress upon you strongly enough, our desire to work with you and your staff in fashioning an agreement acceptable to all the municipalities affected by this plan. I can understand many of the feelings and questions that you have concerning this program. While we may not have all the answers to these questions now, I ask that you join us in searching for them. You are probably asking yourself, who are they, and what is their plan, and how will it effect us. Because you are not members of the Northwest Municipal Conference, I can understand how you would have a sense of suspicion, or at least wonder meant over the "they" , or who "they are" . The "they" is us , the Northwest Municipal Conference, it is a conference of 29 cities, municipalities, very much like yourselves, located in the north and northwest suburbs of Cook County. The Board of Directors is comprised of the Mayors of each member and direction is given through a professional staff, which is reflective of all the elected officials in the area. I Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20, 1986 Page 2 For nearly three years now we have grappled with what many of us feel is the single most important issue facing our area, and that is the disposal of municipal solid waste. For nearly three years, we as elected officials , in an inter- governmental setting have researched, analyzed, and discussed the whole variety of alternatives dealing with this problem. We are here this evening to explain what we believe to be the best alternative, both long term and short term, and to seek your assistance in making this a reality. As elected officials we understand your concerns, we share them, we are not developers seeking a favorable zoning to make a profit . Rather we are elected officials, such as yourselves, seeking to take a piece of property , which was a former strip mine, and utilize it for what we will call a balefill. In a few minutes you will be shown what a balefill is , and is not , and I believe you will start to see how many of the concerns you have are shared by members of the Northwest Municipal Conference. First and formost of these concerns is environmental safety. We are not a solid waste landfill firm that will one day close the doors and leave town, rather the municipalities of the Conference of Public Entities, who will bear the responsibilites of the operations of this facility and perpetuity. Therefore, our concern for environmental safety is second to none, and I commit to you that this is a concern for each and every Mayor involved in this process. Other Issues, such as truck traffic, land use and operations need the necessary imput of this City Council. As we develop a consensus in conjunction with the Village of Bartlett , the Village of South Elgin, and hopefully the City of Elgin, it is our intention to seal this consensus in the form of an inter-governmental agreement . No community wants a solid waste disposal site. The City of Rolling Meadows doesn' t want a transfer site, but it recognizes it is uniquely cited within the regions to accept and handle the residential waste that our citizens produce on a daily basis . As you will hear in just a few minutes, the site chosen for the bailfill is also uniquely situated to serve our common constituencies . I pledge to work with you all. With you and all the effected communities to insure that this program of disposal will be the safest , and most cost effective in the State, and possibly the Country. I want to also equally assure you that your imput will be meaningful. This plan is not etched in granite, but can and will accommodate all meaningful and responsible imput . While I am not here to say trust us, I am here to say work with us. I believe we are open, honest and to that end I am sure an atmosphere of trust will emerge. Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20, 1986 Page 3 At the conclusion of tonight ' s meeting, and after your initial rounds of questions have been dealt with, I will ask that you appoint a special committee to assist the staff and elected officials of the Conference and further development of this proposal. We have pledged to conduct more than thirty meetings on this issue throughout the region in order to maximize and insure that the concerns of not only the City of Elgin, and the Village of Bartlett , but all the residents of the cities and villages are heard. At this time I would like to introduce Bill Grams , the Executive Director of the Conference, who will get into the meat and potatoes of the program. Bill Grams: I will be joined in answering some of your questions tonight by two of our consultants, who have worked on this particular project , one is Dan Dietzler, President of Patrick Engineering, a firm located in Glen Elyn, he has had extensive experience as a civil engineer, and specializes in civil engineering projects involving the control of ground water and surface waters. He has provided consulting services to the U.S. Corps of Engineers, Illinois Department of Transportation and a number of other public entities . In addition he will be joined by Bud Beatty, Bud is a PE, in Illinois, New York, Maine, New Jersey, and New Hampshire. We brought some extra copies of the plan which I think you have already seen. What you are seeing is an executive summary of the plan, which is still in a dynamic stage. The reason for coming out with the plan is to present this as a proposal. It is a proposal for discussion, a proposal for imput , and a final proposal to be molded from the thirty plus public meeting we are going to have on this issue. As Mayor Ahrens said it is not etched in granite, rather as I said earlier it is etched in sand, which allows us to wipe the slate clean, if necessary and start over. There is a strong underlying commitment contained in this executive summary, which deals with the function of environmental safety. I think throughout the three and one-half years of this planning process, that has been the one by-line which has always typified all of our planning efforts to date, and that is the site we have must be the safest not only in this state, but if we can make it the safest in the country. Bill Balling, Village Manager of Buffalo Grove: The study group that we had worked with, basically is the core of the Northwest Municipal Conference and some non-members that have sought to participate. The plan itself calls for three major components , as far as the site itself. The first and most critical is a site where a solid waste disposal facility, which we will term as a balefill, that Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 4 site is located within the northeast quadrant of West Bartlett Road and Illinois Route 25 . There are two transfer facilities that will be needed to support the balefill facility. One will be located in the City of Rolling Meadows , and one site is still under negotiation and cannot be announced, but is in the general vincinity of the Glenview Naval Air Station. The disposal concept is relatively simple, you would operate under existing solid waste collection patterns , you would have the trucks drive to the transfer station points, at that point the solid waste would be processed, it would be compacted, and baled, and then transport trucks and vehicles would take the compacted bales to the balefill site. We are designing the transfer station facilities so that they can accommodate commercial and industrial waste, although we have no intention of directing that portion of the waste tothe balefill area. There are other alternatives which we have discussed and evaluated and we feel that use of the transfer station for the duel purpose would be compatible for our purposes . Aside from sites the solid waste task force has developed a multi-facet program of reducing garbage in our area. We sought to establish a goal, a ten percent solid waste reduction over a five year period, for all Conference members . We believe that through re-cycling, public education and other means that we will be successful in achieving that goal. We also believe that the concept of balefill is an interim solution to the question of solid waste disposal, and we are committed to study further alternatives in the future, which may prove more economical, and more environmentally safe than that which we able to identify today, and those which may be identified as cost effective solutions in the future, and to that end, we have pledged to continue to study, to establish reserve funds within the group of municipalities participating to ultimately convert any solid waste disposal facility, or solid waste system to a higher technology, whatever that may be in the future. I am speaking in terms of the municipalities working together and I think this is an important concept . We are over two dozen municipalities, and we propose to combine through the inter-governmental cooperation act to a solid waste management agency. We have modeled our program around the water agencies, which are emerging in the northwest suburbs and believe the will provide the best vehicle for local imput and control. i Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 5 Let me get to some of the specifics on the balefill site itself, because I believe that is the component of the plan that is probably of most interest to the Council. The site itself is located in the vicinity of West Bartlett Road and Illinois 25 . We selected that site for several reasons. One, we believe that the location of the facility as it relates to existing truck traffic patterns will be compatible to receiving balefill transfer trucks. We believe that the transportation system which leads up to the site, particularly the arterial spines are appropriate for that as a location for the site. We believe that there are appropriate buffers within the site itself that will permit the solid waste management agency to operate a balefill with the minimum adverse impact on the neighboring communities . We feel that we can work with the site and not only would it be a land reclamation project in terms of using the basically exhausted pits, into a public resource, but also operate that site so it would meet the highest environmental safety standards which we are able to achieve. We have a brief slide presentation on the balefill itself, which I think would be useful to go into at this point . There are several elements that emphasize safety, some of which have been highlighted, the natural clay liners, the synthetic liners. the gas collection control system, the buffering, the use of available technology, which will minimize odors , the vermin and debris blowing within the area. Obviously, the single most environmental control is the restrictions on the type of material that will be introduced into the balefill. We will closely police and monitor the facility, and I am sure that ground liquids , and we want to emphasize that this will be a publicly controlled site. The inter-governmental solid waste agency, which we are aligning ourselves with is a public agency and one that will exert full control on the site. As far as our own timetable, we would like to move ahead in 1986 , to secure the final designs on the site and to secure annexation and proper zoning for the facility itself, and if at all possible begin construction of the facility in 1986 . The Village of Bartlett has agreed to entertain a proposal from the joint action agency and the Northwest Municipal Conference for the proposal. The technology that we are pursuing would be the state of the art , we are very open to additional imput and modifications to this , provided that the suggestions made donot alter the very rigid environmental safeguards, which we are willing to pursue and remain cost effective. Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 6 We would like to think that we could garner the support and guidance of the City of Elgin in the development of this facility. It might be best --- we do have our engineers here and if we could open it at this point for any questions from the Council. Mayor Verbic: We have a lot of people here and I think that before we commence the questions, I would like to have those in the audience stand up who are for the landfill in this particular area. (no one in the audience, except those making the presentation, indicated approval of the plan) . Needless to say I do not have to ask those stand up who are against the landfill. Of those people in the audience how many of you live within several miles of the landfill. (response indicated three- fourths of the audience) . Councilwoman Shales: I notice in your plan by 1991 you plan apparently to reduce amount of balefill going into this , and to begin or to have finished looking into a resource recovery, that is the high incineration. I think, if I read it correctly, you feel that is really a safer in the long run, a safer way to take care of waste, and you would like to have one operational by 1997 . I guess I am wondering why you are not looking at that right now instead of this, and if you go ahead with the balefill, how can we be guaranteed that by 1997 you would indeed be doing something like incineration. Bill Balling: The Northwest Municipal Conference identified energy from waste incineration as its preferred alternative, and they published that in a report a couple of years ago. The main problem with that is it continues to be not economical. It requires a substantial amount of capital formation in order to build a facility and requires an active energy user that will provide revenue to offset the cost of the system. We feel that with the cost of landfilling and the number of sites becoming fewer and fewer in our area that at a point in time the cost will reach a threshold that will warrant the development of an incinerator facility for our area. We do not believe we are there at this time. The balefill will not be an inexpensive alternative, we are talking in terms of about $21. 50 per ton in 1985 dollars . Incineration, by our 1984 study was, I think , close to $40. 00 per ton. Councilwoman Shales: Was that with or without energy user. Bill Grams: Yes, that was with a steam heated concept into an industrial park with also resource recovery from electric purposes. One of the other aspects of dealing with this issue is one of additional regulatory controls, which we feel will be part of the clean air act , which are dealing l ' Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 7 with the problems of dioxion emission coming from incinerators and may add additional costs to that , as well as a change in the tax code, which allowed for certain tax benefits to accrue to companies that do this . If that were to be eliminated, we would see a substantial increase in the cost of incineration vs, the cost of landfills , and of course this plan proposes a sinking fund, which down the line will hopefully bring down that cost of incineration if the other aspects of environmental safety donot rule out incineration, such as dioxion emissions. Bill Balling: We are not at all certain that incineration is all that much safer, and in fact will be proven ultimately to be safer than this type of balefilling, but it is clearly the goal of the Conference to move into that direction. We feel that within a ten year window we will be able to structure a proposal that will permit us to do that . Your second question was what assurances will you have. Again the emphasis, and again a very important point , is that the agency itself is a publicly governed agency. It will be made up of the representative Mayors or the designate to the agency and they will basically manage the agency, establish all the policies and conduct all of the planning. So assuming that level of imput and interest remains high in that area, I am sure that the elected officials will do what is necessary in order to make that a reality. We also propose within the agency a large, about twenty- five persons, citizen advisory committee to advise the agency on an ongoing agency on an ongoing basis, on recycling, hazardous household waste, incineration and other issues that would be important to the agency. Mayor Verbic: Mr. Balling, you talk about incineration and some of the side effects and the fact that it has not really been proven safe. On the other hand you present to us a baling operation which has been in existance for four to five years , and I think in that period of time there is no one who has had enough experience to realize what the side effects are, and I think that is too short a period of time to come out with what you feel and what you describe as one of the most efficient methods of use for a landfill. I feel you are contradicting yourself. Bud Beatty, Engineering Consultant : The most difficult at any time in regard to solid waste is what kind of guarantees that there will be no problems now or in the future. Baling has not the fifty year experience that one might like to have, nevertheless it has say roughly a fifteen year experience, with some good data being taken over a period of time, and also it is related to some very basic questions, namely, L Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 8 the primary one , from a baling standpoint , what impact will balefill have on groundwater, and from that one also could ask are there any other problems relative to gas generation, other things which might impact the environment locally and in the future. From a groundwater standpoint , I wouldn 't support , and I do support the approach and I am pleased to be in that position, cause I am not always with clients in an approach taken for landfilling. The information that we have on landfills in general certainly are applicable to balefills. Now with a balefill you have a very compressed, very high dense material and the reaction times and some of the characteristics when you get it is slightly different , but essentially you have the same material, it is under the same conditions, except for a little moisture and density differences, and you are going to have the same kind of problems which you have ground- water wise with a conventional landfill. However, with conventional landfills, I think we have looked at- initially just some concerns about where they were placed, and then we got some concerns about perhaps we ought to at least have clay under them, and then we got into collection, and now we are looking at new technology and yet although it is new, it is also roughly ten years old, with data collected and experience. I feel comfortable with looking at the kind of liner system proposed here, which basically is a clay. My own experience is that with a clay liner, overland with a synthetic liner, we really have the best of both worlds inasmuch as a clay liner, even though it is a very small amount , does certainly have the potential for some discharge to groundwater, and a synthetic liner has a potential, particularly for some kind of rupture, tear, penetration, or mechanical failure. If in fact there is any such problem with the synthetic liner, it will be absolutely confined to the local area because there will not be any exodus at that particular point . I just think all I can really do at this point without getting into more detail than you want to get into is to say that yes we do have good data on landfill design, it would apply to this balefill and the security to the groundwater system is one that in monitoring the system over the years and if there were any problems you could do something about it , but certainly the Conference does not want to get into the position of having to do something about it in future years, and I would assure them that they won ' t . Councilwoman Moylan: Could you please give us the name of the community that has had fifteen years experience in this. Bud Beatty: Actually the balefill in the film was outside of St . Paul. I saw that facility. It may not have been fifteen Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 9 it may have been at least ten years since I saw it . Mayor Verbic: We were told at our initial meeting that it has just been in existence for four or five years, one year in Minneapolis . Bud Beatty: Its the American Hoist --- I was at that building and I am sorry I don ' t remember, but I know that it has been much more than five years ago, its been about ten years ago. Councilwoman Moylan: Bill, will you see that we get the address of that community. Councilman Van De Voorde: Are there any written papers by experts such as yourselves that we could have that would assure us of the safety of this sort of operation. Bud Beatty: There are several papers which have been prepared on the characteristics of the balefill and performance relative to groundwater protection, etc. , I think that coupled with that, those by themselves need to be coupled with looking at the kind of composite liner system, which is proposed here. I think again, it might be good to get that type of information coupled together to you. Jim Cook: Is 'nt the real problem with balefill apt to be in the prolonged production of methane gas, because of the slower decomposition of the facility due to its compaction. Bud Beatty: The methane gas curve in a typical landfill varies primarily in accordance with the amount of moisture, and frankly with the modern technology, if you will, synthetic liners, etc. , this in itself in a landfill or a balefill will tend to prolong the methane gas cycle. Methane gas being generated can be controlled, it is controlled at balefills and landfills . I would suggest there is 'nt record, to my knowledge, of there being a particular problem, such as an explosion, and type of difficulty with methane which has been controlled and recognized that it is there. This would not be a suitable site for construction of structures for a long time, unless there were very specific provisons for control of methane, because, yes, that danger would be there for a long time. Councilman Andersen: What guarantees do we have that enforcement of operating rules will occur. You alluded to the fact that there were twenty-nine communities here and the elected officials of those communities have pledged themselves to enforcement of these operating rules, but as I personally know the lives of politicians are rather short . Their longevity in office is predicated on the popularity of their decisions as they go along. Four years from now we could have a whole Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 10 new set of politicians out there with not such a great incentive to provide for these guarantees that you allude to here. Would you care to respond to that . Bill Grams: I think the same question will be -articulated by the Village of Bartlett or any other community involved in the Conference program. We see the method of guaranteeing certain operations, rules through agreements or contracts that municipalities do in establishing what they are going to do when they do come to an agreement . We think inter- governmental cooperation and the ability to put that in writing is a way of insuring certain of those guarantees. Bill Balling: We also anticipate that the site will be subject to all the inspections of the host municipality and also that of the EPA. Councilwoman Shales: How do you propose to keep commercial waste out of this . Bill Balling: That is one of the goals of the solid waste agency to prescribe specific rules on collection because right now we have many of our municipalities have shared collections where the commercial collecting vehicle is also a residential collecting vehicle. There will be the need to inspect and monitor that on an ongoing basis, probably at the transfer station point . There will be penalties imposed to those members who would attempt to break those rules . Councilwoman Shales: Who would impose the penalty, who would have the authority. Bill Balling: Well, the facility itself would be owned and operated by the Solid Waste Management Agency, and the member of municipalities would utilize the facility subject to the terms and conditions of its use, be that in an agreement or be that through a service contract , but it would be incumbent on the operators, probably at this point at the transfer facility, to insure that the proper waste and only the residential waste was placed in the residential balers. It is not an issue that has been fully worked out and its one that really the agency must struggle with, because it offers a real collection difficulty for many of the scavengers that have collection service. Councilwoman Shales : You talk about ten per cent reduction, and all these other nice things, but they all take someone who has the authority to ------ Bill Balling: One of the concepts which the Conference Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 11 is committed to is the concept of rigid inspections and penalties for those who do not abide by the rules. We are very concerned about making this facility a real state of the art operation. One that we can look to with pride, so I believe you will find the Agency itself very interested in insuring the facility' s property use. The is the real issue, one that requires some sensitive study. Jim Cook: Would you talk to your site for a minute, according to the plan, you have something like 700 acres of land there and a 225 acre site in the middle of it , what is the rest of the land going to be used for. Bill Balling: Well, our ownership interest would be the 225 acres. The land itself would have potential I am certain for expansion of this facility should it prove worthwhile and important . Our interest is in the 225 acres. Mayor Verbic: Do you have an option for the 225 acres , or 1000 acres. Bill Grams: We have an option for 225 acres, and in fact the landowner did ' nt want to see us take any more of that , but they are still an operating system on the northern part of the property, it being used for the sand and gravel operation that is up there and the owner who has been the owner of record for some forty some years on that particular site wants to see it continue. I think the function of even that particular 225 acres is more than we would actually need. The fact of the matter is we are talking about a limited life facility as a balefill, with the full recognition that the host community will most likely have a sunset clause for its operation as part of its zoning approvals . So whether or not this particular facility will be completed at the end of its political life, it will have to be closed down pursuant to that inter-governmental agreement between the sited agency---- the sited municipality and the agency. Councilwoman Moylan: In this inter-governmental agency going to guarantee the performance in perpetuity, or are they going to close out when they plant the trees and the grass . Bill Grams: No, they will guarantee the performance in perpetuity, the ownership in that land will not be transferred, we would probably work with the communities in the adjacent areas as far as land use is concerned, but the land will remain the responsibility of the municipalities as part of the agency. Councilman Waters: I am having trouble understanding the organization of this , let me go back to see if I can put together successfully what I think I heard. Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 12 The Northwest Municipal Conference is the initiator of this proposal, but the organization that will actually own the land and will actually operate this facility is an agency yet to be created by the Mayors, Representatives of each of the communities that join this inter-governmental agreement . Am I correct . Bill Balling: Yes. Councilman Waters : This new agency then that will supervise this operation, are they going to hire professionals to run this , under their direct supervision, or are they going to contract with another agency to operate this . I thought I heard you say earlier there was an affiliation with a third party, and you went too quickly with that , did I miss that . Bill Balling: No, you have it correct . The Northwest Conference is really the body that conceived the idea and developed the plan, it is not an operational entity that can spin this on into a joint action agency. The joint action agency will have the responsibility to manage the facility and establish the policy. It will either do that by hiring staff, an operational manager and staff, or by contracting that management and operation out to a private sector operator, to another entity. That again is a decision of the agency, it is empowered to do either, but it will certainly need to do one of those two, or possibly both. You may well have a managing director and then also have the operation of the balefill contracted out to a service company, but the responsibility will rest with the solid waste agency and its management . Councilman Waters: And at this point is membership in this inter-governmental agreement restricted to members of the Northwest Municipal Conference. Bill Balling: Well, at this point the agency is technically off the ground, although it is not funded and it is not constituted as a body. It does have the ability to expand or to actually eliminate numbers, so it does have the potential to expand, but right now the members of the Northwest Solid Waste Study are members of the task force, but could be expanded. Councilman Van De Voorde: I would like to get back to the guarantee. Guarantee is a word, but we could make it meaningful by having a high dollar bond that would back up that guarantee. Are you prepared to do that . Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 13 Bill Grams: I think we are prepared as an agency, or agency to be formed, to take whatever steps it would do to restore the situation that occurred, and the situation that existed prior to our --- I would think it would look silly doing something which obviously would necessiate you to hit the bond. Whether or not that is through a bond, or whether it is through an actual direction by either an environmental, such as EPA, or the agency itself doing the cleanup. I think it is a concept that merits some additional consideration as to what kind of action will be taken by the agency should there be problems . One of the key elements to this is a concept of how the insurance is going to be provided and one of the aspects we see, in fact one of the reasons we are going through all these extraordinary environmental protection issues, is the fact that we don 't want to be in that basic insurance market , which has old sites, 25 or 30 year old dump sites in it and part of a risk pool. It is the intention I think at this point in time of the management agency to seek and insurance package, or to self-insure in such a way that it would respond to any problems that may indeed occur at the site in the short term or the long term. i A concept of a bond would be something I am sure the agency could consider it as far as moving towards its guanrantees to the community. Councilman Van De Voorde: You see the problem is more acute for those of us who live across the street from the site than you folks living 25 or 35 miles away and bringing in your refuse to our city. Bill Grams: I tend to agree with you, we are totally aware of some of the political impact and problems associated with these, and I think again, the agency would take that into consideration as to how it would want to work out those guarantees, and what those guarantees would mean when you sit down and work something out . Mayor Verbic: Bill, how many square miles comprise the 29 cities and the 7 townships , would you judge. Bill Grams : It would be approximatley 220 square miles, something of that nature. Mayor Verbic: I was made to understand on December 30th when you approached the Village Presidents and the Mayors in regard to the possibilities of a landfill and if they said no you moved to another area. It is inconceivable and incomprehensible to me to think in terms of the fact that you should come within a thousand feet of our borders without even informing us of your thoughts and ideas, with the thought in mind that we as a city would be left out of local control, and you placing us to take care of garbage Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 14 from 29 cities and 7 townships . To mean that does not make sense. Mayor Ahren: The total number of square miles that are involve, we searched high and low looking for a suitable site, and if you can help us find another one we will be glad to consider it . As far as the site within your boundaries , the Conference in setting up the perimeters with what we are going to do with this, by the way you found out about the site before the Mayors did, if that is of any value to you. Mayor Verbic: Two hours before. Mayor Ahren: Well you knew more than they did. The Mayors who set up the guidelines that a host or a member municipality should be considered first to be a host community, and should that community decline to be a host community we would then go to the next closest community. In this case the site that we picked, Bartlett was the closest member community, and we have asked them to entertain a motion to look at this. As far as us bringing the garbage, or refuse, to your borders we have no other place to bring it . We want to solve a problem within a region which is Cook County, we want to keep Cook County refuse in Cook County, because of the problems it entailed going out of Cook County, as you are all fully aware of. We are bringing what we consider, and I hope after you have seen this, that you will agree that we are bringing something that is far less objectionable than dumping a garbage truck, opening the bag and letting everything fly. As far as the confidentality of it , I am sure everyone on this Council can agree that there are some things like land acquisition, annexations that you have to have a degree of confidentality before things fall through the cracks . That is why you were not informed until the day that the Conference was informed. In fact you knew a few hours before the Mayors did, and I caught what-for because of that too. We did' nt try, and still are not trying to sneak anything by, we want to be open with you folks, we want to work with you, that is why we are asking you to form a committee of aldermen to work with us . To share your concerns and intermingle ours to solve this problem and work together. We don' t want to fight each other. Councilman Gilliam: Are ou willing to share in the control Y g or are you just asking for imput . Mayor Ahren: Well we are asking for imput , because the host community would have the control. This does not preclude the imput and helping to solve what your concerns are, be they truck traffic and roads and so on. We will be glad to intermingle these into our inter-governmental agreement . Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 15 Councilman Gilliam: Let me ask you as question. If I came to your backyard and I wanted to put garbage in your backyard would you want some control. Mayor Ahren: Well, if I could get it yes, but if I could not I would have to see what is the best deal I could make. Councilman Gilliam: So what you are saying is that you would not give us any kind of control. You see imput is cheap, we can say something and you say well let ' s put it in a contract , but contracts are made to be broken, and I am concerned that 27 communities that are not effected by what goes on in the Elgin area will say oh yeah, we can fight it , we can put them in court, we can tie them up, and if you are going to come into my backyard and play ball then you have to play by some of my rules, and when I say rules its rules of control, because right now all you are telling me is that you are going to come and listen to me, get some imput , some ideas, go home with it , put it in a contract , which at times can be worth no more than the paper it is written on, unless you have the hundred million dollar bond, and I am upset that you are not going to give me control, without control in a ball game in my backyard, I have a lot of problems with that . Mayor Ahren: I think this is probably what I am asking for in the way of you folks sitting down with our people and saying what kind of control you want , and if we can work out some kind of solution to the control you want , then we can put it in there, but I don 't know what you mean by control and this all has to be worked out between us. Councilman Gilliam: Your talking about the 27 municipalities set up by a group and a charater and a third party and you have three or four different groups, and Elgin has no control to say that if you are breaking the rules how do you stop it , how do we change it . Mayor Ahren: No, I think you have every right to that , I think that is part of the function of this committee that I have asked for. You become a part of this and we will sign an inter-governmental agreement with you, with South Elgin, and with Bartlett , to make sure that none of these rules are broken, and these agreements are worth the paper they are written on, contrary to what you may say. Councilman Waters: Do I understand that the inter-governmental agreement that you are talking about is different from the inter-governmental agreement that establishes the agency. Mayor Ahren: That is correct . Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20, 1986 Page 16 Councilman Waters: We would have an inter-governmental agreement with the agency, is that correct . Mayor Ahren: Correct , that would help solve some of the problems. Councilman Waters: Did I also hear you say that in that agreement between the agency and the City of Elgin you would be willing to establish some of the policies . Let me be specific. Size of truck, weight of load, routes to be taken, are you saying that you would put in your agreement with the City of Elgin control of those factors, by the City of Elgin. Mayor Ahren: Reasonable. Not little pickup trucks thats unreasonable, if I am reading you right . Councilman Waters: I think that is unreasonable also, but I think there is a reasonable point . Mayor Ahren: Yes, I think there is a point that we can all sit down and reach an agreement that you can have an voice your concern and your controls over. Bill Grams : I think the management agency has discussed this at length with what kind of controls the host communities are going to place on it and I think those same things would hold true, what those controls are is the key. I think in the area of transportation, yes , the agency would do in that direction. Controls of operation for example, we would look at what is negotiated to be, obviously if we give the host community control of all this operation and then four years from now we have a new city council in whatever city we are hosting and they say you will operate between 8 in the morning and nine in the morning, we are not going to have a facility which is going to be very useful, so we are trying to establish what those levels of control can be. Councilman Gilliam: Ok, my concern is control of the agreement and to have some control should the agreement be violated, without having to go to court or to sit down and negotiate with 27 people, or different bodies that may not care what effects Elgin. Bill Brams: Yes, to get back to the idea of a performance bond, as I said earlier I think it is an idea that can obviously lead to compliance in such a way that you don't end up in a court of law, unless we were going to fight that , but it seems to me that some of the issues that have been raised I am sure that we have heard from Bartlett that if there is blowing garbage off there I want to be able to ticket it and it will be x number of dollars, and I don 't want to spend a lot of time, but obviously that is the case, if the truck has that problem and its pulled over thats what the going rate is going to be right there. So when you say control Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 17 control is a very broad term, what are the elements of control and how do you negotiate it out to be and once we have reached the elements of negotiations then we are more than willing at this point in time to put those in writing and if either side reaches that contract they will pay for whatever that breach will cost , and if that is a performance bond, or some other form, I am sure the agency is in that particular position. Bill Balling: I think we need to reserve the flexibility to operate the facility economically, but we also pledge to you that we need to operate it safely, and if you can assist us to control the operation in a safe manner we would welcome it . Councilman Gilliam: I think we are going to have a disagreement on economics, control, we can sit here tonight and say we have control, but I think when we sit down at the table to come to that we are going to disagree, because what we consider important to the City of Elgin may not be important to the other municipalities. Bill Balling: Well, when we were talking about economy we were really talking in terms of operational economy, the access to the site, so that I can get vehicles in reasonable numbers at the appropriate times in the date. That I can operate the necessary kinds of equipment and that I have basically the capabilities over it all. Jim Cook: What are you going to do if Bartlett decides they don' t want you on Bartlett Road. Bill Balling: Well, thats a major problem, because that access to the site through west Bartlett Road is critical. That would be in the terms of an unreasonable request , because it would prevent us from getting into the site. We would not be pursuing the site without that access . Jim Cook: All I am saying is things happen to roads , roads become impassable, roads no longer become safe, what happens when the decision is made that you have to look for an alternative source, alternative route to that site. Bill Balling: Well I think the area involving the access is one that we will have to work out through a inter- governmental agreement , I don ' t think there is much of a question there that we have to be assured that we can gain and maintain access to the site, but we don 't intend to disrupt existing traffic patterns to introduce these large type of vehicles to commercial streets and residential streets , which are not appropriate for that type of use. Councilman Andersen: West Bartlett Road as it is presently Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 18 constituted if that were to currently accept 90 trucks a day, with 40 tons a piece on them, you would not have West Bartlett Road, well I wouldn 't even guess how long it would last . Councilman Van De Voorde: Are you familiar with the Bluff City Fen. Its immediately to the north of this property and its a beautiful wildlife area and I wonder if you had considered that in your environmental study, and how that would be protected. Dan Dietzler: I am with Patrick Engineering. We have not conducted an environmental study and really we have no conducted an exhausted study of this site as will be required. We recognize that such a study is required and before we embark on those studies we have come here to ask for your cooperation. I think there was quite a bit of discussion about why we had not come, or why the Conference had not come to the City of Elgin and discussed this potential site with you before it was announced to the public, and I think that was explained previously, the reasoning for that . Now that an option has been secured on this property there is no reason withhold any information, there is no competitor that will move in in front of the Conference and upset the plans . The next step is to conduct very exhaustive studies of this site from the surface drainage aspects, the geology,hydrology, the existing wildlife, and water quality, all of this will be addressed, but before we begin those studies, which we will begin very shortly with your cooperation, and another study that is very important is the traffic analysis , but before we begin those we must have some cooperation from you. We need to know what your concerns are so that we include those concerns in the study. We have recently heard this concern that there may be a fen in the area. Mayor Verbic: 55 acres . Dan Dietzler: I have gone to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and met with their representative for this geographic area, and inquired as to whether there are any known fens in this vicinity, and there are. There is a fen located on the west side of Gilberts Street , Gilbert Street runs from Route 25 north towards South Elgin. There is a very important fen located to the southwest of Gilbert Street and to the west of Route 25 . This area is an old played out gravel pit and the Army Corps of Engineers recognizes it as such. Now, later this week I have a meeting scheduled with the head of their environmental group, and this is the agency that is responsible for protecting the wetlands of the United States. They have the jurisdictional authority to stop any development that may encroach on wetlands . I have a meeting with their representative this week to walk over this entire proposed area to get a preliminary opinion on whether this area contains any natural Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 19 resource that is of such value that we should not consider investigating the site further as a landfill. Councilwoman Shales: I guess my big concern, although I can get excited about trucks and traffic, and blowing garbage, my main concern really is the site itself. I guess I would like to know if anywhere in these United States there is a landfill that really works and everybody is happy about . The other thing is have you sat down with South Elgin, or are you going to. To my mind they will be the most directly effected if this thing does not contain the leakage. Dan Dietzler: Landfills deservably have a bad reputation. Fifteen and more years ago landfilling was performed where it was convenient . Low areas were designated as landfills and there was no consideration given to the long term effects of landfill. Really at that time none of us were concerned about what we were disposing in our waste and where it was going and we really were not making the connection between groundwater and chemicals that we were using and within the last twenty years or so people have started to recognize the connection. What they have done is to influence legislators to pass laws that restrict where you can dispose of refuse, and the entire control of our wastewater and our solid waste. When the laws were first initiated and these controls and permits were required, the existing landfill operators, and some of them were municipalities and some private disposal companies, they were faced with a change, now they had to get a permit , but all of their rates for disposal of refuse and so forth were set by previous practices. It was not until about ten years ago that responsible engineers began to look at this problem and now today the cost of citing a landfill is very high, and that is good, there are good things that have come about because of this . Today an agency like Northwest Municipal Conference recognizes that they have to do these exhausted studies and they are willing to spend the money. The controls are there now, the public has recognized that there is a connection between the garbage bill that we pay and having an environment that you are happy with. So in terms of the controls on the landfill and whether these landfills and whether these landfills work, within the last several years landfills have been designed on a basis of thorough geologic investigations as we propose to perform here. At those sites where they have been designed and controlled and monitored, using the best technology that we have available to engineers, we are not finding the problems that historically people associate with burning dumps and landfills. We don 't find the generation of leakage at sites where we are covering the refuse daily and conducting the landfill in an organized Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 20 fashion. There have been failures , there have been mistakes made, but we are humans, and of the thousands of landfills that have been designed in the last five or six years you are finding very, very few, if any, failures. We are learning that we can' t just build in one layer of protection, we have to build in several. The thick clay liner is one layer. The synthetic membrane, and then a leakage collection system on top of that , and then a monitoring system surrounding landfill to monitor the facility at all times . These are layers of protection and factors of safety that we are now building into these facilities that were not even considered ten or fifteen years ago. It is a complete different situation. Bill Grams: At the same time we hand delivered the letters to Mayor Verbic, a letter was hand delivered to the Mayor of South Elgin - no response. A second letter was sent about two weeks later and still no response. Councilman Gilliam: You said the first response was to contact all the different villages to see if they wanted a landfill and if they said no then you would move on, is that correct . Bill Grams : I said we looked high and low trying to find a site for a landfill. Councilman Gilliam: No, what were the rules originally, you said that if someone said no then you would not put the landfill in that area. Bill Balling: What we did is we had a site about a year ago October that we presented to the Cook County Board of Commissioners that was in the Village of Hoffman Estates. It happen to be on county owned property and the county was unwilling to proceed with the necessary zoning, but the initial phase of the study, which is going back maybe two and one- half years, did have a rather exhaustive exercise to evaluate using the established criteria of the study committee, permitted sites and potential sites for landfilling, incineration, and for transfer stations, and where we are today we have the very best sites that we have been able to identify for that purpose. Councilman Gilliam: Are there any sites within the 27 municipalities that would come close to matching what is on West Bartlett Road and Route 25 . Bill Grams: Well, the site that we had considered in Hoffman Estates was a suitable site in the area. It was virgin ground, and that was one of the problems that the county had with the question. Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 21 Councilman Gilliam: But outside of that . Bill Grams: outside of that there was a site that was in Northfield Township, which is the site of an existing landfill which we sought to expand and we received no support to move ahead. Now that site was governed by a three-party planning agreement and it was in unincorporated cook county. Councilman Gilliam: So those are the only two places within the 27 municipalities that would qualify as a landfill. Bill Grams: That is correct . In fact the particular criteria of the available facility that we have here is superior in that the transportation is good and some other aspects of the particular site. Probably the more superior site was the Hoffman Estates site along Shoe Factory Road, in the Forest Preserve District , but again a policy decision was made by the landowner, basically the County of Cook that they were not going to pursue that . Councilman Waters: Has the language of the inter-governmental agreement establishing the new agency been formulated, is that available. Bill Grams: Yes, the inter-governmental agreement language, the broad and empowering language is contained in the legislation which allowed us to set this up. The legislation was passed approximately three years ago, which allows communities to band together for this purpose, to issue revenue bonds , and have certain powers for the administration of facilities owned and operated by the particular agency. That has already been put through the statutues and it is on the books right now. What is more important is the agreement by which those communities form that agency. That is in the process of being provided now. Until we have negotiated with all the effected parties quite frankly we have not finalized it . We have it in rough draft . Councilman Waters: The only effected parties will be thos who join the agreement so you are not talking about the agreement with Elgin, South Elgin and Bartlett . You are just talking about 29 members of the Northwest Municipal Conference, they are the ones effected by the language of that agreement . Bill Grams: That is correct , but obviously the big concerns are how much liability runs with being a member of this agency is a key component . In addition what kind of agreements will be part and parcel of that inter-governmental agreement . So we are going to have two separate compacts of inter-governmental agreements . They are going to be tied together, they have to be. If we agree to do something with the Village of Bartlett Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 22 or the City of Elgin, the group is going to have to be cognizant of that as they join and form the agency, that is why they have not formed it yet . It is a matter of spending a year, and that is what we have dedicated to doing this , taking the imput from all the actors and trying to work down what those agreements will look like with the respective parties, and then as a package this will be taken to each community for its finalized position. Probably the most difficult thing of this whole process will be, even after we have negotiated it , is sitting down with attorneys for 29 municipalities and coming out with one inter-governmental agreement . That could be an exercise that which will take some time, but I am sure a year even for attorneys will eventually bring some conclusion. Councilman Waters: I would agree with your conclusion also, and the reason I was asking for that language is I would like for our attorney to have an opportunity to review that, because I am concerned in working through a second party, the possibility of supervising a third party, how much liability there is to the first party. Councilwoman Moylan: This is a voluntary agreement with your 27 agencies and let ' s say when you want to be efficient and I think that you wanted to guarantee the efficient use of the property, fifteen year from now when it no longer becomes efficient for these 27 communities, its not in their best interest any more, can they all just voluntarily resign, walk away and leave us and these good folks with the mess. Bill Grams: No, I think that is the reason we are going to take so much time up front is that obviously a community that enters into this inter-governmental agreement voluntarily, once they are in is going to be bound by their liabilities as a member, and that is similar to the case of the water systems for example where your are bound to whether or not you are going to use that water, you put a certain portion in. There are a series of liabilities that go with the membership and then each community will decide whether that membership is worth the tab. That is the reason we need all the inter- governmental agreements up front so that the communities as they pass those inter-governmental agreements will be in a position to assess what full membership will cost in the long run. Councilman Andersen: It would seem you have engaged yourselves with 29 of the wealthest communities in the State of Illinois . How far off the pace would a co-generation be, utilizing the garbage of all these 29 communities . You talk about cost effective, how cost effective is polluted water, increased traffic, and all of the concerns which have been expressed Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20, 1986 Page 23 here tonight . Bill Grams: Well, first of all the 29 communities have a very large demographic spread. Individual per capita income may be high in some, but I can assure you in others it is not very high. However, the provisions of services is the same in all the handling of residential solid waste, and so I would think there is a lot of my membership which would not think that they are the 29 richest in the State of Illinois . Secondly, when you talk about cost effectiveness there is a real concern and I think Bill articulated earlier on this, the envirmonmental protection is something we are extremely concerned about . We think that a facility of this kind will not pose any environmental hazard. We are no so sure, and quite frankly, I could not at this point in time make that statement concerning an incinerator use, we know of some problems associated with incinerator use and we know what they do to a different element of the environment . Thirdly, you are talking about an element of cost , which we feel we will have to move to , but in reference to what we are talking in gross figures today, its probably three to four times what we are spending in disposal. With all attended risk to that and the problem of capital formation and the tax code, and the possible environmental climate we think those are not insurmountable, but the fact of the matter is in the short term we don 't think it very prudent to wait . I think the fact of the matter is that we will see the regulatory climate settle in the next five years. We will see the bond market go back to a position will allow us to know what the costs are, and at the same time during this period that we are operating the balefill, we will be saving for that eventual shift to bridge to a higher tech. I think in the short term we will have the safest facility. Councilman Van De Voorde: You are here tonight to sell an idea, what is in it for Elgin. Bill Balling: Well, I think there is an opportunity for Elgin, I think we don 't want to ignore the needs of Elgin, this is an interesting site, I think there is probably an opportunity, again the entire concept of the solid waste agency is to work with the membership of the agency, but we believe there is an opportunity for any disposal facility to be advantageous to a nearby neighbor. We believe we can reclaim a site , which is basically unuseable at this point in time and it may have some use in the future. It won 't be industrial type use, it won't be developable use, but it may be recreational use that will have a benefit to the community. Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 29 Councilman Van De Voorde: Its a big recreational area right now. There is a lot of fishing out there, swimming and a lot of wildlife. Bill Balling: That type of activity would be displaced for the period of operation because the portion of the site which we would maintain would have to be a secure site as a matter of safety. Councilwoman Shales: You had agreed to give us the names and locations of successfully operating balefills and also I would be interested in some specific names and locations and the type of landfills of successfully operated landfills that have a real history of success. Mayor Verbic: I think that one thing that should be included is the adverse effect as far as in your studies which you will be doing of other landfills and you indicated your engineer is going to bring back this information. I would like to know what effect you have on industrial property and its future with a landfill across the street , and thats exactly what we have in that area. I would like to know the effect of a landfill on selling future industrial sites, across from a landfill. Bill Balling: We will attempt to get that information for you. Mayor Verbic: If there are no further questions I would like to thank you all for coming out an explaining to the Council members, myself and members of the audience, who are here tonight . We will probably discuss this as a group next Monday at our regular Committee of the Whole Meeting. Bill Ahrens: I would like to thank the Council for their time, patience and understanding of this situation and I want to ask that you appoint a committee as I requested earlier to work with us to try and solve the problems which were brought up this evening. I would ask that you appoint this committee as soon as possible. Mayor Verbic: Mr. Ahrens, I will tell you one thing, if I get as many answers this time as I got on December 30th, I don't know about the future of a committee, because I was driven around the block and never came to the center to get anything concrete as far as I am concerned. Bill Ahrens: Mayor Verbic, We did not come here to argue with you tonight , we came to try and work with you and the Council, and I would hope that you would see the goodwill that could be formed and the common sense, I hope, to appoint a committee that could make this thing work, rather than fight each other. We don' t want to fight , we want to work together that is what we are here for this evening. Committee of the Whole Meeting January 20 , 1986 Page 25 Appoint this committee to work with us and try to solve these problems that we are all concerned with. Thank you. Adjournment Councilman Gilliam made a motion, seconded by Councilman Andersen to adjourn the meeting. Yeas: Councilmen Andersen, Gilliam, Moylan, Shales, Van De Voorde, Waters and Mayor Verbic. Nays: None. The meeting was adjourned at 8: 50 p.m. Marie Yearman, City Clerk