5.4. SR 05-17-2010 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

A required buffer area is pant of a solid waste facility as defined by the City. Under City Code § 58-91: Solid waste facility means all property, real or personal, including negative and positive easements and water and air rights, which is or may be needed or useful for the processing or disposal of waste and for which processing or disposal of waste a license is required under the provisions of this article. Solid waste facility includes, but is not limited to, transfer stations; sanitary landfills; solid waste processing facilities, including resource recovery and waste reduction facilities; and waste burning facilities, including incinerators, boilers and other facilities for burning processed or unprocessed solid waste. City Code §58-91 (definition of "solid waste facility') (emphasis in brief). A buffer area imposed as a condition to the issuance of a CUP is "needed or useful for the" disposal of waste. As one court recognized when affirming a trial court's holding that the phrase "landfill facility" includes not just the active portion of a landfill but also its buffer areas, "the court's interpretation is a sensible construction of the term `landfill facility' because each part of the facility, including the active area, monitoring wells, buffer zone, and wetlands, is necessary to the overall function of solid waste disposal." Weyerhaeuser v. Tacoma-Pierce County Health Dept., 123 Wash.App. 59, 68, 96 P.3d 460, 465 (Wash.App. Div. 2 2004}. See also IT Corp. v. Solano County Bd. of Supervisors, l Ca1.4th 81, 100 n. l6, 820 P.2d 1023,1035 n.16, 2 Cal.Rptr.2d 513, 525 n.16 (Cal. 1991) (noting that a hazardous waste facility company "wisely makes no claim that the [buffer] condition itself is `unreasonable, "' and noting that "such setbacks, of course, are designed to provide a barrier against the migration of contaminants to adjacent waters and lands zoned for incompatible uses."). In short, the City Code requires that solid waste facilities must be located within a S WF district, and a buffer area that is required as a condition for landfilling is properly considered part of a "solid waste facility" as the City Code defines that term. D. ERL's letter: ERL's March 9 letter states on page 3 that "On December 17, 2009 and again on January 4, 2010, City plainly and unmistakably represented to Judge Varco that the parties' 2003 Host Community Agreement's `language clearly refers to `expansions ... on the Landfill property,' not to `expansions' onto Tiller's adjacent 108.8-acre southern development area (SDA) property." (emphasis in letter). It adds on page 4 that, "Because City has represented to Judge Varco that the parties' 2003 Host Community Agreement's `language clearly refers to `expansions ... on the Landfill ~ropeTtV,' City staff's proposed amendments, if adopted, will constitute an equally `clear' breach of the agreement." (emphasis in letter). The City's filings: At the relevant section of the City's proposed order discussing the Host Community Agreement (HCA), the City proposed that the Court find as follows: 4