By Michael Howell
On Thursday, January 5, the County Commissioners approved the site location of a proposed motor vehicle wrecking facility near Victor. The auto wrecking/recycling business, proposed by Clint Nickerson, is located at 211 Humdinger Lane, near the Bitterroot Disposal Transfer Station south of Victor.
Nickerson has applied for and already received a license to operate a recycling business on the site, but he is also seeking a license to operate an auto wrecking facility at the site as well. He told the Commissioners on Thursday that if he cannot get the auto wrecking facility license he will not run the regular recycling business either.
Nickerson has been working on the business project for a number of years. A previous attempt at another location, off of Old Corvallis Road, ran into stiff resistance from neighbors and the location site was denied due to the negative effect on the quality of life in the area. Nickerson persisted and found a new site within 100 yards of the waste transfer facility near Victor.
Commission Chairman Matt Kanenwisher said that he could not imagine a better site in the county to locate such a facility than next to an existing waste disposal transfer facility. The proposed site is 1.93 acres in size and located within the established Super Fund clean-up site surrounding the former land dump.
County Department of Environmental Health Supervisor Lea Guthrie told the commissioners that there were restrictions against drilling any new wells in the Super Fund site, but that four wells for monitoring water quality existed on the property. She said her department conducted a site evaluation and determined that no sign of any problem that would prevent placing a septic on the site was observed.
DEH Sanitarian Rod Daniel said, “My feeling is that they could meet the criteria for a septic.” Daniel added that the use of an office on the site constituted a technical violation of the sanitation laws at present, although the use of a port-a-potty was currently mitigating any health threat.
Nickerson told the commissioners that he was already operating a licensed recycling business at the site. He said he did recently try recycling a mobile home on the site and it created a big mess that drew complaints from several of his neighbors.
“I won’t be doing that again,” said Nickerson.
He told the commissioners that a fence around the property would help with the problem of trash blowing off his property. He said he aimed to build a fence if the auto wrecking facility license was obtained. He said he could not afford to build the fence prior to getting the license and that if he did not get the license he would discontinue the recycling business altogether.
Commissioner J.R. Iman said that he had concerns about the burden being added to a private road accessing the site. He requested that Nickerson work with his neighbors to assure that the road was properly maintained and that he recognize his share in the upkeep of the road based on the impacts he was creating. Iman said he did not see any physical problem with the site, but that there may be a storage problem and a problem with neighbors that it would be in Nickerson’s interest to address.
Commissioner Matt Kanenwisher said that he recognized the problem with bootstrapping a business, but, being a member of the Board of Health, he was not going to have much sympathy if Nickerson should drag his feet over the septic requirement.
Gene Honey, who operates a licensed auto wrecking facility in the south valley, said, “I’m for free enterprise, but I want him to meet the same legal requirements that I must meet.” He noted that Nickerson had, by his own admission, already processed ten automobiles at the proposed site. DEQ officials have in the past stated that some limited activity does occur at sites that are in the process of obtaining a license.
County DEH Supervisor Lea Guthrie noted that the decision at hand had simply to do with the county approving the site as a potential facility site. She said that, if approved, DEQ would follow up with an environmental analysis of the site to determine if there were any environmental problems and that the public would have a chance to weigh in on that determination if they felt there would be negative impacts on them or the environment.
Several members of the public did express concerns about the potential impacts and complaints about the current impacts of the already operating recycling business. A petition signed by 25 citizens protested the use of the site. They accompanied the protest with several photographs, some showing trash that has moved off the property onto adjacent properties in the area.
Nickerson admitted that controlling the cardboard on the site was a problem right now, but said it would be resolved by building a pole barn to contain the material if the current license application was approved. In response to questions as to whether he is bonded to pay for clean-ups, he stated that he currently holds liability insurance up to $1 million on his business.
The site was approved by a unanimous vote of the commissioners.