By Art Perkins In its June 10 edition, The Dispatch carried a front-page article headlined "Landfill owners want a longer permit." Beneath that heading, the article went on to note that the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, which is responsible for the permitting of the 304tht Street landfill, has been requested to extend the permit, originally valid for 10 years from its initial date of 2006, another 25 to 35 years. In noting this request, the Health Department was careful to state that the dump has been filled to only about a third of its capacity within the 320-acre footprint, and that any extension of its permit would not involve additional real estate. Andy Comstock, environmental health manager for the department, requested public comment up to a cutoff date of June 30. The article brought back some rather unpleasant memories that I had been trying to forget for over a decade, despite the constant reminder of the growing mountain of trash thaf is accumulating at the site; its stink, particularly on cold days; the generally filthy road conditions close to the truck access; and the ever-bolder drivers of the truck convoys entering and leaving the facility. As a local citizen and particularly as a Christian, I feel that it's a duty to present my input to the general public on the matter, as I was involved in this issue from the outset. In the process of formulating my input, I thought it best to review the issues that disturb me the most. Accordingly, I retrieved a copy of the September-October 2000 issue of the Washington Free Press, which contained a summary account of the events surrounding the permitting of the landfill as presented by me in collaboration with journalist Jennifer Moon. Given the passage of a decade and a half since the publication of that summary, I found some of that material to be no longer relevant. It's way too late to try to prevent the dump from existing. Mount Le May, as it's called by locals, exists and that's that. Attempting to rescue the sole-source aquifer beneath the dump from pollution is off the table. It is what it is. I, and other drivers who use the highway adjacent to the dump, have learned to accommodate the large number of trucks that enter and exit the facility. We also have learned to hold our noses and look the other way. But there is an issue regarding the dump that continues to affect each and every one of us. That's the enormous problem of local inability to address the perceived corruption of those who govern us. Talk to anyone whose Jife intersected that of the dump and if lawyers aren"t present and the recorder's off, he'll be quick to claim that the county is about as corrupt as it can be. Having heard that conviction mouthed so often in the past, I undertook to review the Free Press article again with a focus on the issues that spoke most loudly of possible corruption. Five such indications of impropriety leapt out at me. I cite them below. " Improper handling of permitting. Permitting initially was to be performed by the Army Corps of Engineers and DOE (Department of Ecology) via independent water quality analyses. DOE deferred its analysis to Corps. Corps performed a thorough analysis and, based on findings, declined to permit the dump. Legal battle then resulted in Corps' 404 permit declared irrelevant to landfills. Regardless, the DOE or TPCHD should have retained the analysis, as that was the only analysis available. Nevertheless, DOE and TPCHD issued permits without using Corps' results or providing any meaningful alternative analysis. " Improper political pressure. Five U.S. senators/congresspeople were enlisted by Pierce County to apply pressure on the Corps in its permitting process. " Improper conduct of permitting process within DOE. According to the sworn deposition of a DOE whistleblower, she was pressured by her superior to fast-track the permit without due consideration of issues. " Improper rejection of long-haul alternative. The comparative local-versus-long haul anaysis performed by the dump interests was superficial, biased and inaccurate. This was noted by the Corps. In addition, the long-haul alternative was declared to be off the table by the county, which chided federal official sfor involving themselves in matters of local governance, when in fact th is decision wazs made by the county independent of the local citizenry. " Improper disregard of state law. SSB 5729, intended specifically to prevent the construction of the 304th Street landfill, was passed by the Legislature and signed into law by then-governor Gary Locke prior to the issuance of permits for the landfill. Nevertheless, LRI (Land Recovery Inc.) jumped the permitting gun by performing minor but illegal construction on the site. This initial work, despite its minor character and illegality, was cited as justification for the law not to apply to the dump. As I reviewed these five indications of governmental malfeasance, others came to mind: " Shortly after receipt of a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request associated with the permitting of the landfill, a fire at the DOE facility destroyed the contents of the single file cabinet that contained the requested information. " Within Appendix B to its Record of Decision, the Corps suggested that bore holes drilled by the applicant to assess the soil characteristics at the site were "cherry-pickedGÇ¥ to present a misleading picture of the underlying terrain. The Corps also suggested that leakage estimates through the liner did not represent reality. Given that this information was generally available to the persons responsible for the permitting, it is difficult to understand why such issues were ignored. " The rules for public input were stacked from the beginning against meaningful input. The three-minute time allotted to each presenter was entirely too short to adequately address some of the more complex issues. The body language of the interviewers displayed a pronounced indifference to what was spoken, a trait that was commented on often by the presenters. This indifference extended to the written response by the interviewers, which failed to adequately address the issues which were brought up. " As a lawyer for LRI implied during a critical court case associated with the landfill, the county executive was influential in promoting or destroying the career of the presiding judge. Given these nine strong, specific and verifiable indications of impropriety by government officials involved in the permitting of the landfill, if's easy to discern that the permitting process was controlled by highly-questionable legal technicalities rather than by substance. Yet the landfill owner got away with it. Therefore, it's logical to conclude that corruption was afoot during the permitting process, just as it's illogical to conclude that the relevant governmental officials were free of the influence of the landfill owner during the permitting process. This raises another issue, even more frustrating than attempting to legally prove the association of an event with corrupting influence, despite common-sense observations that literally shout of corruption. That is the issue of knowledge available to the citizenry during and after the permitting process. We locals are excluded from the collection effort of technical data associated with the maintenance of the dump site; we are asked to rely on information supplied to us by the Health Department, which we suspect from the above improprieties to be biased in favor of the dump operator. We are asked to present our opinions and prove on our own any contentions we might raise, when we, as the general public, are not equipped to present such proofs. How can we know what the rate of leachate production is, or the actual leakage rates, when we're excluded from the site and are asked to accept as accurate and complete the meager information doled out by the Health Department to those who demand it? How can we monitor the quality of the water in the nearby Muck Creek and the existence of pollution plumes within the aquifer itself without the funding necessary to hire the appropriate experts in sampling? How high is the mountain going to rise? How can we participate in the deliberations of our county fathers or the agencies chartered with the protection of the public welfare when we are excluded from all but the most meaningless and mostly after-the-fact discussions? What would happen to the dump and the surrounding area if the long-anticipated magnitude 9-plus subduction quake should actually occur? As a matter of fact, what does the county expect to do at the end of the time specified if a follow-on permit is granted? Will it finally agree to close the dump down, or will there be a move afoot to expand the dump beyond its present boundaries? In matters such as the permitting of landfills, why shouldn"t the burden of proof be placed on the shoulders of those who govern us? It would make much sense toward establishing trust in our governing officials to equip the public via appropriate legislation with the tools to verify honest government compliance with the public interest. A key part of that legislation would be to replace the permitting authority now granted to the Health Department with an independent body possessing sufficient technical expertise to evaluate the actual condition of the dump, as well as a proven track record of honesty in the face of pressure. Such bodies do indeed exist, as demonstrated by the Army Corps of Engineers' performance in the evaluation of the then-proposed landfill. For me, it would be a waste of time to input my opinion on the matter to the Health Department as suggested in The Dispatch article. After all, the information presented above strongly suggests that the Health Department is a big part of the problem. The only potential remedy that I see at this point is a strong public response to the Legisiature. To be effective regarding the present issue, any resulting legislative action would have to include the annulment of any permit granted to the landfill operator between now and the time that the legislation is signed into law.
Art Perkins is an Eatonville resident.
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