Landfill resolution before Council

City Council President David Narkewicz  and Ward 4 Councilor Pamela Schwartz will introduce a resolution at Council tonight which advises the Board of Public Works (BPW) to suspend further action on expanding the city’s regional landfill. The resolution calls for a public planning planning process to determine how Northampton will manage its solid waste when the current landfill cells will be closed and capped, which DPW staffers estimate will happen sometime in 2011 or 2012.

The resolution calls the impending closure of the landfill a “critical opportunity” to examine “alternative systems” for managing the City’s waste, and proclaims that it is a “better investment of time, energy, and resources” to move beyond the “divisive landfill expansion debate” and engage in a “community conversation” about waste management and reduction.

The Narkewicz/Schwartz resolution comes on the heels of a rambling and ambiguous BPW decision issued in January which voiced support for the landfill expansion while concurrently declining to “pursue further investment” in permitting the project without “a clear indication of city support.” Here’s BPW Chair Terry Culhane reading the resolution aloud.

In an unusual arrangement unique to so-called “heavy public uses,” the City Council is the special-permit granting authority for any landfill expansion plan. The BPW, were it to advance the project, would need to apply for site plan approval from the Planning Board and a special permit from the Council. Department of Public Works staff, working with hired consultants, would prepare applications for the permitting process.

Permitting costs would be born by the DPW’s beleaguered Solid Waste Enterprise Fund. If approved, the expansion would be paid for with a series of municipal bonds.

The DPW has been advancing plans for the expansion of the Glendale Road landfill since before 2006, when state environmental officials issues Northampton a waiver of its site selection criteria that prohibit landfills over Zone II aquifer recharge areas. (Science or Politics: The Valley Advocate, August 2008)

The Council has been operating under a self-imposed gag order (pdf) on the issue of the landfill expansion after being advised by Attorney Michael Pill, a land use attorney who addressed the Council early in 2008, to act as a “quasi-judicial body” and avoid “ex-parte” communication with constituents on the landfill expansion topic so as to avoid potential legal challenges.

Here, from the archives, is an hour-long video of Pill’s and former City Solicitor Janet Sheppard’s 2008 presentation to the Council in which the “gag order” advice was delivered:

Expect discussion tonight on whether a vote by the Council to “suspend” the permitting process will free its members from the strictures of the “gag order.”

Related article on MassLive: “Northampton Council Eyes Landfill Alternative“