Commissioners Bury Landfill Plan Amendment Would Have Banned Expansion

Spokane County commissioners canned a measure Tuesday that some residents had hoped - and others had feared - would halt growth of a West Plains landfill.

Two of the three commissioners voted down an amendment to the county’s solid waste plan that would have banned expansion of all landfills.

They instead blocked only waste dumps that aren’t equipped with a liner to keep toxic chemicals from flowing through to the region’s drinking water supply.

“We were informed by no less than three attorneys … that (the comprehensive ban) would not be legally supportable,” said Commissioner John Roskelley.

Commissioner Phil Harris, who represents the West Plains and is up for election this fall, voted against his colleagues.

The county shouldn’t authorize “mega-landfills,” Harris said, but instead should provide for smaller ones in environmentally “appropriate” areas.

The problem, said Spokane Solid Waste Director Damon Taam, is how to forbid one business to expand while at the same time allowing new ones meeting the same safety standards to open.

“You couldn’t come out and say that was fair,” Taam said.

Tuesday’s decision had been postponed since April, when county lawyers started a legal review.

Last spring, more than 250 people from the Medical Lake area packed the commissioners’ chambers - most to tell officials they favored a comprehensive ban.

The reason: The Graham Road Landfill near Fairchild Air Force Base has been planning for years to expand its 40-acre site. Residents there feared that, even with its plastic protective liner, that landfill eventually would contaminate the aquifer.

“Technology always fails,” resident Dan Kenreck said at the time. “Show me something man-made that never fails.”

Meanwhile, a spokesman for USA Waste Services Inc., the landfill’s Dallas-based owner, had said the facility likely would have been forced to close if denied a chance to expand.

That had some contractors up in arms, because many use the landfill to dispose of their construction waste. They feared being forced to go to the city’s landfill, which costs substantially more.

Tuesday’s vote came as a relief to Graham Road spokesman Brendan Farnell.

“It’s a good decision,” Farnell said.

He said Graham Road was still embroiled in a lengthy review process and said the landfill’s expansion “was closer to a year or years away than a few months away.”