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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1981 07-29 Workhouse land may become metro landfill REVIEW Single Copy 30` WED., JULY 29, 1981 Workhouse Nnd y ma become m t 1 • e r o andfIll By JONATHON CLYDE GLASS area would extend into Battle Creek Park, Staff Writer as well as the workhouse land to the south and east, she explained. Eugene Burns definitely plans to testify The workhouse land acts as a storage at the Aug. 3 public hearings on the area for a significant fraction of the watt possibility of constructing a sanitary or in the Battle Creek Watershed,accordir demolition landfill on the site of the to a MPCA report.The water table in tt Ramsey County Workhouse, 297 S. area ranges from 18 to 41 feet below tt r Century Ave. surface, the report added. "Obviously, we're very much con- A landfill there would require a gravel cerned," said Burns, director of the base and synthetic liner beneath the Ramsey County Community Corrections bottom layer to protect the groundwater, Department which runs the workhouse. Williams said. "It would certainly restrict our farming Considering that the site is in a lowland operations," he added, referring to the and very open to public view. it would workhouse's large farming operation on have to be visually screened with trees its 260 acre south Maplewood site. and berms, according to the MPCA The workhouse is one of two sites in report. Ramsey County and one of 17 in five Besides these environmental factors, metropolitan counties to be considered for several legal obstacles stand in the way of a landfill. The Metropolitan Council and a landfill at the workhouse site.Assuming seven metropolitan counties will share that it is in the northwest corner of the counties to be considered for a landfill. workhouse property, the landfill would The other Ramsey County site is the not be the minimum legal distance from former University of Minnesota airfield in other facilities. It would be less than a the northwest corner of Shoreview. The mile from some wells, only 50 feet from Metropolitan Council and seven the workhouse building and 270 feet from Pi metropolitan counties will share the nearest private residence.The landfill responsibility to select the final landfill would be 420 feet from Century Avenue, 1 site(s),depending on the overall regional which would be the truck route in and out N/ plan for waste management. of the site. The metropolitan area's current landfill The terms of ownership of the capacity will be exhausted between 1985 workhouse land,which was deeded to the and 1987,according to Paul Smith,senior county by the city of St.Paul more than 20 environmental planner with the years ago, place certain restrictions on Metropolitan Council. Ramsey dCounty, the use of the land.According to the terms which generages about 35 percent of the of the deed, the ownership would revert metro area's total waste, does not have back to St.Paul if the predominantly open any landfill sites, according to Margaret character of the land was changed. Thorpe, executive assistant for planning The county has not entered into any and development for Ramsey County. discussions with St. Paul on this matter, Public hearings on the Ramsey County because the site of the landfill is still so sites are scheduled !or Aug. 3 at 9 a.m. "iffy and speculative," said Thorpe. and again at 7 p.m. They will be held at Even if the parcel was used as a land- the Lake Owasso School, 934 Wood Hill fill, it could revert to open space or far- Drive(at the intersection of County Road ming after to site has been filled and C and Victoria), Roseville. covered, according to the MPCA report. The hearings will be conducted by the The MPCA estimates that an 80 acre Minnesota Pollution Control Agency sanitary landfill, which takes general (MPCA).The MPCA did the initial review municipal garbage, would operate for of the environmental suitability of all the approximately four years. A demolition sites, which were actually chosen by the landfill, which is used for discarded counties themselves.The public hearings construction supplies and equipment, will address "only the environmental would operate for seven and one-half suitability of the candidate sites,"and not years. "the counties'site selection procedures," Neither four nor seven years seems like according to a MPCA statement. a long time to Burns.He asked,is it worth By state law, landfills must be at least disrupting the workhouse operation for 160 acres in size, 80 acres for actual fill such a short-lived facility? He wondered, and 80 acres as a buffer area. what is the real value of the property to He is uncertain which portions of the the county, whether it is used for a workhouse property are under con- workhouse, landfill or other facility? sideration, said Burns. Some maps show The landfill is only one of the options for the landfill in one corner of the property, that land, according to Thorpe. St. Paul which would only minimally affect the and Ramsey County are studying the farm buildings, while other show it land's suitability for a resource recovery spreading right over the workhouse ad- plant, which would not require as much ministration building. space as a landfill, she said. "I don't call that a buffer area," said Such a plant would burn solid waste as a Burns. source of steam energy. The market for In fact, "pretty much the whole the energy could be the 3M plant, she property is under consideration," ac- added. cording to Thorpe. The county's ability to cut down its Jean Williams, an engineer with Pope- volume of solid waste through resource Reid Associates, which did the soil recovery, recycling and composting is borings, confirmed Thorpe's statement. critical to its overall waste management While the most likely location for the plan, Thorpe said. If the conservation landfill itself is the northwest corner of measures are successful enough, a land- the property, the entire parcel--from fill may not be necessary, she added. Battle Creek Park on the north and west, As long as a landfill is still under con- to Lower Afton Road on the south, and sideration in Maplewood, however, the Century Avenue on the east—is under Aug. 3 public hearings provide the op- consideration, she said. If a landfill is portunity for concerned residents to make sited in the northwest corner, the buffer their opinions known. r .