Farmers Sue Landfill Once Again Site Got Final Major Permit Two Weeks Ago
A group founded by Adams County wheat farmers has again filed suit against a planned landfill near Washtucna that got its final major permit two weeks ago.
The lawsuit was filed Monday in Adams County by the Organization to Preserve Agricultural Lands.
OPAL says the private landfill project lacks adequate safeguards to prevent ground water contamination and threatens the marketability of nearby crops.
The Adams County Health District violated state law by unconditionally permitting only half the 550-acre landfill - “an action that was not studied and reviewed in any environmental impact statement,” according to OPAL’s petition for legal review.
“We haven’t done nothing wrong all along,” said Adams County Commissioner Bill Wills, a landfill proponent.
“OPAL is only good for lawsuits. We have prevailed on all of them,” Wills said.
OPAL previously mounted an unsuccessful challenge to the project’s zoning permit.
The latest OPAL suit follows a May 19 decision by the health district to give Waste Management Inc. an operating permit for the 90 million-ton landfill.
OPAL is asking the court to review the actions of Adams County commissioners, who approved a ground water-monitoring plan for the project, and the health district’s permit approval.
The permit clears the way for construction of the landfill.
Waste Management officials hope to secure garbage disposal contracts from Pacific Northwest towns and open the landfill as early as January 1999.
OPAL wasn’t deterred by its string of legal defeats in its previous efforts to derail the project, said Brett Blankenship of Ritzville, the group’s treasurer.
Adams County officials “issued an inadequate environmental impact statement, and now it’s time for the courts to review that,” Blankenship said.
Waste Management expects to prevail in court, said spokesman Scott Cave in Ritzville.
“The courts have ruled that this process was proper and legitimate. All of OPAL’s previous allegations and lawsuits have been reviewed by the courts and appropriately dismissed,” Cave said.
, DataTimes