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Underlying the entire landfill siting and .expansipn processes,. there appears to be some perception at tpeMetropolitan Council (MC), the County and MPCAthat. the Communi ty and residents are simply suffering frOm t,ne NIMBY syndrome. This is not so. The City and. its residents have done their shareandmoretoaccomodate the region'swas'te. There simply has to come a timewhen,like. it or not, a landfill must close in conjunction with its permitted life. Need for Project ThetIS largely depends on the certificate of Need (CON) application! analysis conducted in 1986. That process portrayed a near crisis situation with respect to the region'S landfill capacity andspecifi- cally the .needfor capacity between 196i-1990.The CON process con- eluded that no f.easible or prudent alternatives to expansion exist to serve the region's needs.during that t.ime period. The cON was reissued (k>yMc)inJanuary of 1988 at the same capacity as was applied fO:rby WMMIin 1986 to serve 1987 through 1990 (635 acre- feet) . We now are nearing the end of 1988, still discussing the same capacity even though two years have elapsed in that "window of need" (198i- 1990) until the RDFfacilities and Resource Recove:ry Systems were to COme on line. Anoka County's Elk River facility is anticipated to be on line by mid-1989 - approximately six months after the expansion of , ~noka Landfill would be initiated. Since the CON process, an Me staff report indicates that there is potential capacity within the existing system to provide the Metro Area needs for the next 18 years (Landfill Capacity Evaluation, Caswell and Rafferty, May, 1987). In our discussion, Mr. Don otter pointed out that the MC's capacity evaluation of 1987 was no longer valid (this has not been confirmed with MC) and that a new Anoka County Landfill most likely would not be developed within the 1990 time frame assumed in theEIS. Both parties agree that circumstances have changed since the CON. Whether these circumstances lend validity to the project need or would Hindicate a reduced need is unknown by either party. A IIlajor issue on the part of the City is that regardless of the outcome of any updated evaluation of need, both the City and the applicant for the CON are in agreement that the capacity evaluation in the CON and as updated (hence, the data in the EIS) is no.longer valid. SinceWMMI significantly increased its landfill fees earlier this Spring, the system has readjusted and now those alternatives that appeared to be neither prudent nor feasible have been, in fact, operable for.the last six months. We are not hearing a great hue and cry from residents that the quality of service has declined nor that price increases were unbearable or unwarranted. Neither has there been aIllarked increase in illegal dumping (8 incidents in 1988, 7 in 1987 per City of Ramsey police records). Similarly, traffic impacts attributable to the landfill have decreased, thus any new activity would increase over existing conditions. Further, the restricted Mississil'Pi River crossing between Anoka .and Champlin has served to further dis.tributehauling vehicles to t.heregion' sotherlandfills. 2 l1~