I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.
Jan. 30, 1997
By Devlyn Brooks
Staff Writer
Clearwater County Environmental Officer Tim Nelson had decided you can't fight city hall, or in this case, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
Nelson said Wednesday he has negotiated a compromise with the MPCA, temporarily suspending a month-long dispute over the renewal of a Clearwater demolition landfill permit.
Nelson had planned last week to appeal an administrative penalty order issued by the MPCA in December that, due to violations of the county's original landfill permit, demanded the county re-apply for a new permit.
The deal struck Tuesday may, however, only be a temporary respite.
According to Nelson, the MPCA has agreed to delete the corrective action in the December penalty order asking the county to re-apply for a new permit and forego the 30-day deadline the county had to submit a re-permitting schedule. The deadline would have expired today.
In return, he said. Clearwater County has agreed to hire an engineer to study the landfill and determine its remaining waste capacity and longevity.
But after that is where the two sides disagree, Nelson said the county would be willing only to revisit discussions with the MPCA over the re-permitting issue after they study. Whereas, Pollution Control Specialist Roger Rolf, who issued the administrative penalty order, said he believed the engineering study was the beginning of a re-permitting process.
However it's seen, the deal effectively leaves the Clearwater demolition site as the last true landfill in the state that still operates on an expireless permit basis, which was what Nelson had been fighting to keep the entire time. All other landfills have been re-permitted on a new five-year rotational basis the MPCA adopted in the early 1980s.
What was at issue, and may be again, depends upon who is asked. Nelson said the county has operated the landfill outside the parameters of its original permit for about a decade, without disagreement from the MPCA. In fact, he said the MPCA had even agreed the new design and usage of the site was more efficient.
However, Rolf said getting the county to renew its landfill permit has been an issue for a number of years and his office has told the county repeatedly to renew it. It was just on a back burner until now.
The demolition landfill, located 1 1/2 miles north of Bagley on County Road 24, opened in 1976. Demolition landfills differ from municipal solid waste landfills in that they accept only debris -- such as brick, wood, plaster, glass and concrete -- that results from the destruction of a building.
The Clearwater site is one of five landfills left in Minnesota that have maintained its original expireless permit, according to MPCA Unit Supervisor Shelley Burman, who oversees solid waste facilities in northern Minnesota.
Three of the expireless permits are issued to waste transfer stations -- in Aitkin County and two in the Twin Cities metro area. The other two are issued to the Clearwater demolition landfill and to a waste processing facility in Duluth.
Burman said the five expireless permits are a minority of the 530-plus permits that have been issued by the MPCA. Of those issued about 250 are active permits, and the other half belonged to sites no longer operating.
Nelson said the order to renew the landfill permit was one of several MPCA corrective actions ordered after an August inspection of the site. The county was assessed a total fine of $10,000 -- half of which was forgivable if the county performed the required corrections, all of which are being corrected, excluding the action to renew the permit.
Nelson said he fought the order to renew his permit because he believes the MPCA has systematically reduced the number of landfill or waste sites that have expireless permits, and when sites have to renew their applications, the MPCA assigns them a five-year rotational permit.
But according to Burman, the MPCA only wants the sites on a five-year permit because it is easier for the agency to help keep sites up to code. It is required of all permitted sites to comply with new laws and regulations issued anyway, even if they have an expireless permit, she said.
"It is not in any way an attempt by the MPCA to gain more control over how sites are operated," she said.
Rolf said the MPCA had asked Clearwater County officials for several years to renew their permit, but because of the environmental officer turnover it had been a "back-burner" issue. The agency had let it go as long as it could, he said, and that's why the site was asked to re-apply.
"This (site) probably should have been re-permitted 10 years ago," he said.
Last week, Rolf said he did not understand why the county was objecting so strongly to renewing the permit. The operation would not be changed by the renewal because the new design would more than likely be approved, he said.
But, Nelson said his is unconvinced.
"The MPCA is out to get the expireless permits," he said. "Their ace in the hole was that we are outside parameters of the initial permit, but we are pleased for not having to go through the application process. We are not trying to dodge anything. it's just that if (the operation of the landfill) was OK the, it should be OK now."
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