Mike Nelson of Vancouver walks to the entrance of the Section 30 gravel-mining site to get a better look. Residents near the site have raised concerns about a proposed compost facility that would operate inside this mining pit in east Vancouver. Alisha Jucevic/The Columbian Photo Gallery
A proposed composting facility in east Vancouver’s Mill Plain area has generated a strong response from several nearby residents, who have cited concerns about traffic congestion in the area and the location’s proximity to a school and a public park.
“We received 114 comments from the public,” said Melissa Sutton, an environmental health specialist with Clark County Public Health. “All of them had the same general themes: air quality — both odor and noise — land use and traffic.”
About a dozen neighbors attended a meeting of the county’s Solid Waste Advisory Commission on Feb. 8, where the commissioners held a public hearing to review the solid waste permit application for the compost site.
The proposed composting facility would only accept “wood waste,” which refers to wood and other organic materials such as grass and leaves. It would exclude all other materials including food waste, plastic, fiberglass, plaster, paint, metal, animal byproducts and any hazardous materials.
The facility would be at the base of one of the pits at a gravel-mining site operated by Tapani Materials Inc., located near the intersection of Northeast 18th Street and Northeast 172nd Avenue. Harmony Elementary School is across the street to the north of the site, and Pacific Community Park is across the street to the west.
“It seems like it’s a pretty inappropriate location for an industrial compost facility — right across the street from a school and a big park that a lot of people use,” said nearby resident Travis Quinten, whose son attends Harmony Elementary School.
A spokesperson for the Evergreen Public Schools said the district is aware of the project and is receiving updates from agencies involved in the application process, but declined to comment further.
Long-standing mine
The mine predates most of the surrounding residential area and continues to operate under a grandfathered state permit, according to Tapani Materials owner Kevin Tapani. Most of the mining operations have already ceased, he said, and the site has switched over to a reclamation process.
The long-term master plan for the area calls for the mine to be redeveloped into an office or light industrial area once the reclamation process is complete, but in the meantime, Tapani said the company has begun to use the site as a recycling facility that processes materials such as asphalt and rock into landscaping materials.
Tapani operates a landscaping supply company at the site called Section 30 Materials, and the company eventually decided to add wood and vegetation debris to its lineup of acceptable recycling materials, Tapani said, providing a local recycling destination for yard waste.
“We thought it would be a good spot,” he said, due to the mining site’s relative isolation and surrounding topography that hides it from nearby roads.
Permit questions
Tapani says Section 30 already had permits for crushing and grinding rock and other recycling procedures and didn’t realize that compost would require a separate permit. According to Sutton, Section 30 Materials initially contacted Clark County in March of 2018, about a year after the site had begun to accept wood debris.
State code allows composting operations with fewer than 25 cubic yards of material to operate without reporting or permitting, Sutton said, and operations with fewer than 250 cubic yards must file reports but can be exempted from permits. But the Section 30 facility had grown to approximately 20,000 cubic yards of material, Sutton said, so county officials advised the company to apply for a permit to continue the operation.
The county did not receive any complaints about the site until this year, Sutton said, and some of the neighbors who attended the advisory committee meeting were surprised to discover that the composting facility was already in operation at the site — although others said they had been aware.
“We knew — we’ve been smelling it,” said nearby resident April Strong.
Some of the neighbors also complained about what they said was an inadequate time period for public notice. The normal guidelines call for all property owners within 300 feet to be notified, Sutton said, and the county expanded that notification area, but several neighbors said they still only found out through Nextdoor and other social media.
“I live two blocks from the site, and I didn’t receive notice,” said resident Connie Nelson.
Permit review
Addressing some of the public concerns, Sutton said that the permit application will need to be reviewed by a number of other agencies in addition to the county, and some of them will have separate requirements for the facility.
In accordance with state law, the city of Vancouver will require concrete or asphalt surfaces at the site as well as infrastructure for the retention and treatment of leachate — the term for stormwater contaminated by contact with the site’s compost and liquid byproducts from the compost material.
The Southwest Clean Air Agency will also have to grant an air discharge permit, which will likely address neighbors’ concerns about odor, Sutton said, and she also noted that Tapani has pledged to reduce the operating hours of the composting facility, closing it at 4 p.m. in the winter and 5 p.m. in the summer.
Multiple members of the county committee cited comments from the neighbors and expressed concerns about the potential traffic impacts of the site, as well as the fact that the compost portion had already been operating. Two neighbors also testified in opposition to the project.
“It should be shut down,” said resident DeLayne Brown. “Our quality of life has been affected and it will only continue to go unchecked.”
The committee members unanimously voted to approve a motion that laid out a number of conditions that would need to be met before the permit could be granted, most of which involved the company receiving approval from all the other agencies before the county permit could be granted.
The air quality permit from the Southwest Clean Air Agency will in turn trigger a review under the state Environmental Policy Act, the committee members noted, which will cover issues including traffic, noise and odors.
Stay informed on what is happening in Clark County, WA and beyond for only
Additionally, the committee said, Section 30 will need to stop receiving all compost materials at the site until the permits are issued and the necessary upgrades are completed. A company representative at the meeting agreed to do so.
Sutton said on Feb. 9 that county staff were reviewing the committee’s recommendation and preparing to issue a final decision. One aspect that still needed to be resolved was the amount of time to give Section 30 to clear the existing compost materials off the site, she said.
Tapani expressed confidence that the company would be able to mitigate the odor concerns from the compost, and described the facility as a positive use for the mining site in the interim period before it gets redeveloped.
“We want to work with the public and neighbors so it can continue to be an operation that fits,” he said. “We want to be a good neighbor.”
