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LETTERS ABOUT SAN JUAN ISLAND TRANSFER STATION |
Related storiesEDITORIAL: It's more than a place to dump your garbage EDITORIAL: Effective government crafts long-term not short-term solutions |
Sutton Road site can't meet long-term needsI fully agree with your editorial on the solid waste situation. To pour more money into the Sutton Road facility, a contaminated, far too small facility, is foolish short-term thinking. That site cannot serve the long term needs of our community; if its use is continued all that means is that our present Commissioners are unwilling to stand up for responsible long term planning, but are simply shunting the problem off to those who will be commissioners a few years down the road who will have to deal with the same issue all over again, probably for an even higher cost to the taxpayers. The opposition to a change is mostly driven by the vociferous lobbying of a few islanders, many of them neighbors of the Beaverton Road site who are playing NIMBY against the best interests of the rest of the island. Our island has grown dramatically in the years I have been here, and will continue to grow, and to generate more waste and more need for recycling services. I have been going to the Sutton Road site for over a quarter of a century, and have watched as it continues to be less and less capable of handling our needs. An investment in solid waste treatment requires a site that is appropriate not only to our present needs, which Sutton Road no longer is, but that will also serve our needs for the future. An investment in a facility that will fulfill both needs is overdue, and cannot be met by pouring money down the Sutton Road rathole. Christopher Hodgkin Transfer Station should move to larger siteDear Editor, We have just returned from our more-or-less monthly trip to the San Juan Island recycle and waste transfer station. We have to report that this was yet again not a pleasant experience. When we first moved to the islands, ten years ago, we lived for our first year on Orcas Island. There we discovered a wonderful system of handling solid waste. Central to our trips to the "dump" that year was bringing some of our belongings that we no longer needed and giving them to the crew of volunteers. They organized what one family didn't want is such a way that others on the island could find items and take them and put them to good use. Often when we needed something such as an old door to make a work table in the garage, we would go to the Orcas Island transfer station and come home with a very serviceable door saving money for ourselves and reducing the volume of solid waste disposal for the County. And friendships were created and community conversations often ensued -- sort of as happens now at the Friday Harbor Farmer's Market. At our transfer station on San Juan Island, no such community bonding or community reuse is possible. Instead we have a small and smelly and dirty little station set among the wasteland of false hills of hidden garbage and eroding piles of dumped dirt killing the trees. San Juan Island should move the transfer station to a larger site where a 'trash to treasure' system of reuse could be created. We are sure that as on Orcas a cohort of able bodied volunteers will come to the fore to manage this aspect of the transfer station and properly designed garbage and recycling sections will be much more pleasant to use and much less likely to be polluting the air and groundwater.
Sincerely, Don't change the locationDear Editor, Council members, please act in a financially and ecologically responsible manner by REJECTING any change in location for the San Juan Island transfer/dump site. For the amounts of money which have been spent in researching alternative sites, the present solid waste dump area could have been brought into compliance, thereby not incurring the resulting expense of fines. If the original overspending to purchase land off Beaverton Valley Road for Public Works use had not occurred, the County would not now be "in the red" for very near the same amount. If the Beaverton Valley Road site is developed for a transfer/dump site, the environmental effects will be far-reaching and damaging to the ecology of this supposed pristine island far into the future. This San Juan ISLAND resident is urging you NOT to put the whole of San Juan COUNTY's taxpayers in further debt in this tenuous state of the economy. PLEASE BE RESPONSIVE TO THE MAJORITY OF COUNTY VOTERS AND RESIDENTS WHO WANT TO CURTAIL UNNECESSARY COUNTY SPENDING. Please reject the further expenses of moving the San Juan Island transfer/dump. Nancy St. Pierre< Choose long-term solutionDear Editor, I live out at Limestone Point. I would like to speak on behalf of some the rest of us here on the island that don’t live next to either one of proposed sites for the needed expansion. Most of the rhetoric of the last couple weeks has sounded like a lot of opinions, implications, insinuations and a few accusations. I would like to make a plea for the council to take a Joe Friday approach while investigating the evidence before us. " Just the facts m’am." When I first moved here 36 years ago, the dump looked like Tony Schmidt sitting on the back of his pickup truck with the tailgate down. It was parked next to a big hole. All the good stuff went in the back of the truck. The rest went into the hole no matter what it was. It all seemed so simple and easy. Given the chance, I would have voted to keep it that way, but it just didn’t work any more. Then another 6,000 people moved here and now the current version just doesn’t seem to work any more either. When San Juan Island is fully developed, there are will be another 50,000 people living here. You can put that in your facts folder. This issue seems quite similar to the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle. Everybody knows that is broken, but nobody wants to pay for the needed repairs. Their costs tripled while they stalled. I would like to encourage the council to look beyond the current squabbling and make an investment in our infrastructure before the dilemma gets any worse. This will require sifting through testimony to find the facts. Most of the information supports selecting the Beaverton Valley Road site. I encourage the Council to walk the different sites before making up their minds and urge them to choose a long-term solution that includes future residents as well as the rest of us who live here today.
Lee Brooks Concerned about traffic on Beaverton Valley RoadDear Editor: For a moment I'd like to move the discussion away from the "NIMBY" comments and towards another issue which seems to be among the numerous missing issues of this process: that of road safety and new road construction costs. The current Sutton Road dump site is on Roche Harbor Road and less than two miles out of town. This road currently enjoys two smooth, wide traffic lanes and ample shoulders allowing for safe travel for motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians. Once a driver turns onto Sutton Road the entrance to the current dump is about one-tenth of a mile. No residences are passed on Sutton Road, and most of the residences on Roche Harbor are set considerably away from the road. The recommended Beaverton Valley site is an entirely different case. Driving down Guard Street past the library (and its newly-configured tight curve) one encounters a narrow road with very narrow or non-existent shoulders. Immediately past the town line at the OPALCO building is the only entrance to the Foxhall subdivision with its (soon to be) 50-plus residences. Just a little way further is the entrance to the North Forty neighborhood with its 21 residences. Directly across the street from the North Forty entrance is Juniper Lane Guest House, a year-round operation with six guest room accommodations. The entrance to the potential Beaverton Valley site is about one-quarter mile from this point, just before the expanding Saltspring Business Park. Beaverton Valley Road is currently a rather dangerous walk or bicycle ride because of narrow or non-existent shoulders. The road already has to handle heavy usage by numerous construction trucks barreling into town from Lawson's gravel pit and other construction supply businesses. I have never felt safe walking or bicycling this stretch of road. One can only imagine how much more dangerous this narrow stretch of county road will become when hundreds of cars and trash trucks are using it. Add to that traffic the entire fleet of Department of Public Works dump trucks and other maintenance vehicles which are planned to be relocated to the same site (evidently DPW wants to relocate the entire fleet and crew there, too!) and it is clear we will have a potentially lethal stew of vehicles of all sizes, tourists and residents all vying for a place on narrow, busy "Beaverton Highway." There has been inadequate discussion or attention to safety issues along Beaverton Valley Road. And, if the county is mandated to widen the road (as it clearly will be), how much will this add to the cost and the entire project? I'll leave the other discussions of potentially damaging pollution to two watersheds, aircraft hazards, well-water quality, reflected and amplified noise to others. But I feel that the safety of using Beaverton Valley Road must be part of the equation before giving the green light to re-siting the transfer station to Beaverton Valley Road.
Michael D'Abrosca Letters from 2003 regarding proposal to end to free recyclingDear Editor, posted 10/31/03 Representatives from all over the world have gone to Eugene to visit the dump and see how they've managed to make money and still encourage recycling. When you go to this dump, you HAVE to go through the recycling area to get to the dump. If you recycle, you are given a red card to present to the weighmaster at the dump. When you give this card, you actually get $1.50 taken OFF your bill. Not ADDED on as suggested by on of our commissioners. Sure, it's extra work to recycle there, as you have to separate everything (brown glass from clear, newspaper from glossy stock, various numbered plastics, etc.) But the effort is worth the trouble. I don't have the eloquence to say this any other way--"charging for recycling is not only short-sighted...It's just plain stupid." At a time when we should be doing everything we can to help our environment, the BOCC suggests an idea that will discourgage recycling, forcing more renewable resources INTO the dump, not out of it. Come on BOCC. Get more creative. Find a way to make recycling work, without charging or eliminating it. John Boyd Dear Editor, posted 10/31/03 Even though it is an inconvenience to pack the truck and drive it up to Sutton Road, the current cost benefit to our business is worth our extra effort. If we are required to pay a fee for all this effort, I imagine the cost benefit is elminated. We may as well stack it up for pick up and save us hours of time and gasoline to make the trip to Sutton Road. Multiply that by many businesses, and plan on adding additional garbage crews. I trust the county will look at the big picture. Right now, the county has many "free" employees bringing their recycling to the recycle center. Start charging for recycling, and you will see a dramatic decline in those willing to use their time and gasoline, get dirty and get stung by summer bees. Imagine if recycling is reduced even by 50% and left for the garbage crews to now provide the trucks and manpower to pick up this additional tonnage currently being brought to the recycle center. Just factor that into equation and see if charging for recycling makes economic sense. Jim Carroll Dear Editor, posted 10/30/03 The choice to recycle requires that an individual dedicate space in their home for collection of such items and then make a deliberate and out-of-the-way trip to the transfer station to unload their recyclables. If you then penalize people for doing so, you may find far fewer people who are willing to expend the effort. Or maybe you'll just find one--me. Tim Daniels Dear Editor, posted 10/30/03 David T. Hoopes, Ph.D. Letters regarding tax to finance solid waste capital needsDear Editor, posted 10/08/03 Elaine Fleming Dear Editor, posted 10/08/03 Save the cost of hauling garbage off island. When it all decomposes you can plant grass that will be lush and green for parks and playing fields! There is no soil there anyway. Make some good compost out of all that garbage. Lots of islanders do that now, why not the County? Helen Chapman King |
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