Saturday, September 6, 2008

City may build new landfill after all

Argen Duncan El Defensor Chieftain Reporter,aduncan@dchieftain.com

The Socorro City Council has moved the regional landfill to top priority in its infrastructure improvement plan, after the mayor said state representatives were receptive to allowing the city to construct a new landfill.

At the council meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 2, in City Hall, the council unanimously approved the request by Mayor Ravi Bhasker to make the landfill the top priority in the Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan for this fiscal year, moving arsenic treatment in water wells from No. 1 to No. 2. Councilor Ernest Pargas was absent.

This summer, on the grounds of past noncompliance with regulations, the New Mexico Environment Department denied the city a permit to build a new landfill that would have served the City of Socorro, the County of Socorro and the Village of Magdalena. The city would also have to stop accepting waste at the current landfill by Dec. 31, 2009.

Local officials said the move would increase trash disposal fees significantly and decided to appeal the ruling.

Bhasker said he and other city representatives met with Environment Department Secretary Ron Curry and members of his staff recently.

"And they were very receptive to us opening the landfill," Bhasker said. "It wasn't like a gas chamber we walked into."

The city has filed an appeal of the permit denial with the Court of Appeals, but the Environment Department wants to go to mediation first. Bhasker wanted to show the landfill is the city's No.1 priority by moving it to the top of the improvement plan list.

The mayor said city attorney Jerry Armijo would meet with the legal counsel for the Environment Department and get a point-by-point list of concerns about the landfill. The city would return a list of how it would address each issue.

City officials know the department will have no tolerance for future violations, Bhasker said.

Councilor Chuck Zimmerly said outlawing plastic grocery bags would help with compliance with litter regulations, especially in spring winds. City Clerk Pat Salome said it would help if members of the public bagged all their trash.

The 2009 deadline to stop accepting trash is still set, Bhasker said, but the Environment Department is will evaluate landfill performance before then. Department staff members are to make random surprise visits and receive reports from the owner of adjacent land.

"So we have very little room for failure," Bhasker said. "But we're going to do it."

The Environment Department doesn't want the federal government to get involved with the situation through any discovery of contaminated groundwater, which would result in litigation with the state department. The city has never polluted groundwater, Bhasker said.

The department wanted financial and supervisory commitments from the city in the area of the landfill, he said.

On a related subject, Socorroan Audrie Clifford asked the city to provide cloth grocery bags and work with the county to distribute fliers about recyclable materials.

Speaking during the public forum, Clifford said she and her husband had missed learning about all of the items that can be recycled through programs in Socorro until recently.

Clifford suggested inserting a copy of a city poster listing these recyclable materials in both local papers and in water bills. She wanted the county government to somehow distribute copies outside the city as well.

"And the most important thing of all is to enlist the kids," Clifford said.

Salome has good ideas about getting schools to collect aluminum, she said.

Also, Clifford recommended that the city sponsor a contest to find the best slogan to print on cloth bags. Then the city would buy the bags and have the schools distribute them.

"Work with some class leaders to make the use of plastic bags become extremely uncool," Clifford continued.

In addition, she wanted the city to distribute cloth bags without the school slogan at senior centers throughout the county at no charge and sell them to the public at the cost to the city.

"If you can eliminate all aluminum and all plastic bags from the landfill by the end of the school year, you can set a new goal," Clifford said.

While recycling anything possible should be frequently encouraged, she said, concentrating on one item at a time might go a long way in teaching people to recycle.

Bhasker suggested consideration of banning or taxing the use of plastic grocery bags.

Clifford said visiting tourists wouldn't have cloth bags when they went into stores.

Bhasker then said the city might charge a small amount for using plastic bags and use the money for cleanup.

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