Agenda - Council - 11/25/1980 - Laserfiche WebLink

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POSSIBLE SITING FACTORS The Waste Management Board (WMB) decided not to select siting criteria for a hazardous waste disposal facility until citizens throughout the State had expressed their opinions on the subject. However, to encourage discussion the WMB is now mentioning certain factors that have been suggested to the WMB or in past siting studies. They are stated without endorsement by the WMB, and are merely a starting point for the discussion that will guide the WMB in choosing final criteria and sites that are acceptable to most of the interested citizens of the State. These factors reRect opinions of various government agencies and other organizations regarding the best types of locations to site hazardous waste land disposal facilities, based on such concerns as groundwater protection, transportation safety, economic feasibility, industrial development, and health, safety, and nuisance impacts on the nearby public. These are not the final siting criteria, nor have they been given any weights relative to each other. Maps will be available at future meetings in your Development Region that show how your community stands on some of these factors. Other factors may not be mapped because statewide data is unavailable or because they cannot be researched and analyzed until specific sites are under consideration. HAZARDOUS WASTE GENERATION -- Hazardous waste generation is often concentrated in industrialized areas. It has been suggested that disposal facilities should not be sited too far from the points of generation because of increased transportation costs and risks. In Minnesota, the only statewide data currently available indicates that the major generating areas are the Twin Cities Metropolitan area and Southeast Minnesota, generating an estimated 66 percent and 18 percent of the State's hazardous wastes, respectively, It is difficult to say how close a disposal facility should be to the generating areas. One suggested flgure is 100 miles or less, although today certain wastes are being trucked about 400 miles to facilities in Illinois and elsewhere. TRANSPORTATION ACCESS -- Reports done for the Pollution Control Agency and other government bodies have suggested that transportation access may be an important siting factor, since it will determine the roadways that hazardous waste will move over and the likelihood and the possible harmful effects of any accidents. Possible aspects to consider include adjacent land uses (e.g., schools, hospitals, and residences), the number of'intersections per mile, and the distance from certain types of main highways (e.g., limited access four-lane roadways; State and federal highways; or 9-ton capacity roads). SETTLEMENT PATTERNS -- A study of hazardous waste done for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency suggests that a hazardous waste land disposal facility and buffer zone could require about 420 acres to contain 20 years worth of Minnesota~jenerated wastes. This size is very tentative and will be finally determined only after further analysis, public discussion, and decisions regarding what wastes may be land disposed in Minnesota. Still, the 420-acre figure suggestsl:hat areas of dense population settlement may not contain land parcels large enough for a facility. LAND OWNERSHIP PATTERNS -- Land ownership patterns may affect the feasibility of acquiring parcels of land large enough to accommodate a hazardous waste land disposal facility. They also can affect the types of adjacent land uses that may be subject to nuisance impacts from a facility. Some of the land ownership patterns that may be considered include the number of different owners and whether ownership is public or private, in the case of public ownership, distinctions must be made between which level of govern- ment owns the land and what the land's dedicated use or category is, such as park, forest, or tax forfeited land. It may only be practical to research many of these questions after specific sites are identified. INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT EFFECTS -- A hazardous waste disposal facility could attract industriai de- velopment, especially if the impacted community and the State decide to provide incentives to companies to locate near the site. Preference may be given to communities that desire such development and have sufficiently large industrial park locations available. Some of the issues raised by this and other factors will be the subject of a report the WMB will prepare for the Legislative Commission on Waste Management on the mitigation of local effects of hazardous waste facilities. This report will be prepared jointly with citizens from the candidate site communities, and may recommend that the Legislature con,[der such programs as tax relief, reimbursement for public services, or incentives for industrial development. PRODUCTIVITY OF THE LAND FOR VARIOUS USES -- Land is a natural resource, and some land is more suited for certain uses than others. Possible uses to consider are agriculture, forestry, mining, wildlife habitats, and pubtic enjoyment of natural environment. The WMB may have to make hard choices between sites and uses because one candidate site may be good for one use, and another candidate site may be good for another use. To choose between these different uses, factors to consider include: the relative productivity of the candidate site for the particular use, the availabi[ity of other suitable land for that use, and the emphasis that the people of the Development Region and the State want to place on the different possible uses. It should be noted that the Legislature has decided that no land may be excluded from consideration for a site unless it is unlikely to qualify for a Pollution Control Agency permit.