Agenda - Council - 09/13/1982 - Special

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I I I I I I i I I I I I i I IN-KIND REPLACEMENT OR RESTORATION Another kind of compensation is in-kind replacement or restoration of resources or services affected by waste disposal facilities. In many cases, this type of compensation is the most effective for adaressing specific impacts. Examples of in-kind compensation are repavin§ of roads to a waste disposal facility, replacing private or municipal water supply wells, replacing parkland lost due to landfill construction and restoring vegetation and wildlife at a landfill after facility closure. Such compensation may be appropriate for those persons located near a facility whose private wells tap into an aquifer. The developer or operator may agree to replace those wells if they should ever become contaminated by leachate from the waste disposal facility. Often, a safer, more reliable water source can be found by tapping into one of the deeper bedrock aquifers underlying the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area. A disadvantage of this solution is the increased costs of constructing and maintaining a deeper well. Furthermore, the deeper aquifers may not be as productive as some of the upper aquifers. This is an important factor if a municipality must replace a well. In-kind compensation should be negotiated between the host community and the landfill owner so that individual community needs can be addressed. REGIONAL REVIEW OF LOCAL GRANT APPLICATIONS Each year, many communities in the Twin Cities Area apply to the federal gov- ernment for grants to pay for local government operations and programs. One method of compensating local governmental units for hosting a waste disposal facility could be preferential treatment in reviews conducted by the Council under the federal A-95 program.. The A-95 review process was mandated in-1968 to prevent duplication among the hundreds of thousands of proposals for federal grants reviewed each year by federal grant-making agencies. As the regional "clearinghouse" for the Twin Cities Area, the Metropolitan Council reviews and comments on 800 to 1,000 grant proposals a year. The review is based on the Council's adopted policies and review guidelines, and a written recommendation is forwarded to the appropriate state or federal agency. Because grant monies are highly sought after, the number of applications often exceeds available funds. In such cases, the Council uses its regional policies to recommend a ranking order for funding the various proposals. The Council may prefer to rank a proposal from a community with a landf~ll higher than a community without one.