To the editor.
A recent letter to the editor from Mike Niewind, manager of Advanced Disposal, Inc. (ADS) Rolling Hills Landfill requires a response. We appreciate his personal efforts to operate the facility to required standards. This has not always happened in the past. We are sorry the three current employees will need to find new jobs. However, here are FACTS he neglected to mention. Eighty percent of the refuse in the existing landfill came from outside Wright County. This includes Industrial waste from all sorts of Twin City businesses, basically anything that does not require a hazardous waste facility. The refuse includes asbestos removed under remediation efforts conducted metro wide. The Environment Impact Statement (EIS) says 85% of waste in the proposed landfill would have come from outside of Wright County. To claim WE are the “not in my back yard” persons is ridiculous! It is the metro area that doesn’t want in THEIR back yard. The current landfill is leaking known carcinogens into the groundwater.
The proposed landfill is not “next to” the existing landfill but separated by property owned by longtime residents of Wright County. I guess their property rights don’t matter in his mind. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is hardly “pseudo-science”.
However, at its heart, this is a question of land use and zoning not landfill technology. The county denied, twice now, ADS’s request to spot zone a particularly disagreeable industrial facility in the middle of agricultural land with over 100 surrounding family homes. It is time for ADS to stop behaving like a spoiled child pestering to get their way. Stop wasting Wright County resources by applying over and over again for a zoning change that has already been repeatedly turn down. The existing landfill is FULL! Close it and move on!
Jeff Young (Buffalo)
Mark Rise (Monticello)
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