The Lansing landfill controversy ain’t over until Billy Ryther stops singing.

Wednesday, August 04, 1999

The Lansing landfill controversy ain’t over until Billy Ryther stops singing.

Don’t wait for any fat lady to sing. Wait until the angry neighbor to the landfill stops reciting complaints the county board has heard before.

Ryther and his wife, Bonnie, were at Tuesday’s meeting of the Mower County Board of Commissioners.

"We don’t know that we’re right. We don’t know that we’re wrong either," said Billy of the latest concerns he and his wife have about their neighbors, the operators of an industrial waste landfill.

The occasion for the reappearance of the Rythers before the county board was a public hearing to amend a conditional use permit issued to Mower County Demolition Disposal Facility, Inc.

Owned by Veit, Inc. of Rogers, the demolition landfill is adjacent to property owned by the Rythers along U.S. Highway 218 North in Lansing Township.

It is the second such landfill within a quarter mile of the Rythers. The other is owned by Richard Wehner. The Rythers themselves obtained a conditional use permit to operate a demolition landfill on their own land, but never proceeded with the necessary state permitting to do that.

On Tuesday, the hearing requested by Veit, Inc. sought to change two conditions to the CUP, concerning landfill access road dust control issues.

Dust control was one of the issues raised by the Rythers, when the county board originally voted 3-2 to issue the CUP.

For two years, the Rythers have been urging the county to enforce the conditions of the CUP granted Veit, Inc. Earlier this year, their complaints resulted in a special meeting called by Richard P. Cummings, 1st District county commissioner and chairman of the board. It is in Cummings’ district that the controversial landfill is located.

At that time (January 1999), no action was taken after the commissioners came away apparently satisfied that Veit, Inc. was meeting the conditions of the CUP.

On Tuesday they heard a repetition of old Ryther complaints and decided to table any action on the requests for amending the CUP until next week.

Mower County Engineer Michael Hanson said the traffic levels using the access road off Highway 218 render the current dust control measures "useless."

According to Bill Meyer, a consulting engineer retained by Veit, Inc., the company has applied calcium chloride dust control twice this year, but the excessive rainfall amounts received didn’t allow the compound to control dust.

At that point, Billy Ryther observed, "I believe we’re back to where we were a year ago. You’ve got just what I said you would get."

Ryther said water runoff from the access road is flowing into a stock watering pond.

"I’m really fearful of some environmental contamination in my pond," he said.

Ryther suggested the access road be blacktopped or closed and the original access road onto a Lansing Township gravel road be used. That was another change in the original plans for the demolition landfill.

Bonnie Ryther said, "We have cattle and calves, horses, too, who all drink from the pond. We have ducks and geese and that Blue Heron, too, that use the pond. Who’s going to pay if something happens to them?"

According to Meyer, Veit, Inc. wants the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s permission to use a recycled partially-concrete material to surface the access road with eight inches of the material.

The Rythers wanted to know if anything was being done by Mower County to enforce the conditions of the CUP to the "letter of the law." Daryl W. Franklin, county zoning administrator, said the county always exercises due process in all zoning enforcement.

Glen W. Jacobsen, chief Mower County deputy prosecutor and legal counsel to the county board, said the discretion to pursue damages if zoning violations are proven is at the "discretion of the county board."

The access road is 3/8 mile long and there is not enough room on the north side, which borders the Rythers’ land, to grow a vegetative barrier; a suggestion of Ray Tucker, 4th District county commissioner.

"The road is only five feet from the Rythers’ fence line and that’s too close to capture any direct benefits for dust control from a vegetative barrier," consulting engineer Meyer said.

"That means the only real cure is to asphalt the road," said Dave Hillier, 3rd District county commissioner. Hillier made a motion to table action on the requested amendments in order to ask Veit, Inc. to consider asphalt surfacing of the access road. Len Miller, 4th District county commissioner, seconded Hillier’s motion.

The consulting engineer said Veit, Inc. may not have a "real desire" to pave the access road.

"They were perfecting happy with those conditions on their permit a year ago," Billy Ryther reminded all.

Bonnie Ryther had the last comment before the commissioners voted.

"Are these things, these suggestions being brought up now to soothe our consciences or are we going to keep going in circles until we solve this once and for all?" she said.

The commissioners voted to table the requests for CUP amendments until 10 a.m. Aug. 10.