Compost operation in limbo again

By Candace Page • Free Press Staff Writer • July 1, 2008

 
Photo provided by vcnaa 

The nonprofit composter will continue to accept waste and sell compost for the moment, but its future is “incredibly tenuous,” a spokesman for the nonprofit Intervale Center said.

Attorney General Bill Sorrell, whose office holds one key to the short-term future of the composting operation, said he hopes for a “win-win settlement” of Intervale’s problems.

At the solid waste district, general manager Tom Moreau said his board has been increasingly skeptical that composting has even a near-term future in the Intervale.

 “They are saying, we’ve put in a tremendous amount of time and resources, and maybe we should cut our losses now,” he said.

While the solid waste district is interested in taking over the operation for two years — until an alternative site can be developed — there are too many unknowns about what regulators would require during that two years, Moreau said.

“We’re not getting transparency from the Agency of Natural Resources or the Division of Historic Preservation, and what we do see appears to make the operation financially infeasible,” he said.

The fate of the state’s largest composting facility has been in doubt since last autumn, when Intervale Compost was accused by the state of environmental violations and failing to obtain an Act 250 land use permit.

Compost has been made in the Intervale since 1987, but the operation has ballooned in size, requiring a large pond to hold polluted water that leaches from the piles.

Intervale Center decided it could not afford the archaeological studies — the Intervale is rich with American Indian artifacts — needed to obtain the land use permit and decided to close the operation.

State legislators responded by passing a bill that exempts Intervale and similar composters from Act 250 until 2010. Composters still must obtain solid waste permits from the Department of Environmental Conservation. Chittenden Solid Waste District stepped in and said it would like to take over the operation for two years or so, until a new compost site can be found elsewhere in the county.

To prevent a shutdown, the waste district since May 1 has provided a $10,000 a month operating subsidy and staff time to help manage the facility. That arrangement ended Monday night.

The Intervale Center, wants to settle its past environmental violations with the Attorney General’s Office, and learn the size of any fine it faces, before turning over the composting to another party. Chittenden Solid Waste wants to know what additional regulation it faces if it takes over.

Brian Dunkiel, the Intervale Center’s lawyer, said Monday that a decision whether to close this month will “come down to the likelihood that a satisfactory agreement can be reached with the state that would allow continuation of the facility for two more years.”

One additional complication: The Attorney General’s Office has suggested that the fines imposed on Intervale might be smaller if the organization agrees to manage all its land, about 200 acres, in the future in a way that puts a priority on the archaeological resources in the soil.

“If there were certain assurances going forward that allowed reasonable use of the land but was mindful of its importance in the overall interests of the state, you might look at the penalties for past conduct in a different light,” Sorrell said.

Most of the Intervale Center’s land is devoted to small market farms that provide food for Chittenden County residents.

Mayor Bob Kiss of Burlington said Monday that farming needs to remain the highest priority land use. The city sold some of the land to the Intervale Center and retains 1 percent ownership.

“The value of the Intervale for agriculture and recreation and historic preservation is so important, I don’t understand why we can’t work together to solve this,” Kiss said.

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