Rosemount Community Members Protest Landfill Expansion

ROSEMOUNT, MN — The Rosemount Planning Commission voted Tuesday to overturn its previous recommendation to the City Council, recommending that the council deny an application for a landfill expansion by SKB Environmental Inc.

The Planning Commission is an advisory board to the City Council and helps it review plans and development in the city, the city's website said.

SKB has since withdrawn all its applications, Senior Planner Kyle Klatt told Patch.

"Our understanding is that the applicant will be revising their plans to better address neighbor concerns, and will likely be resubmitting an another application at a future date," Klatt said.

A group of neighbors in Rosemount — who did not know about the plans or that the commission would take up the topic at its July 27 meeting — came together Tuesday to protest the expansion.

Klatt said in his presentation at the meeting that the residents weren't notified due to a "clerical/technical error."

A petition created by resident Jim Flagg against the landfill's expansion, which has gathered nearly 1,500 signatures, was also brought to the Planning Commission.

Ultimately, after hearing the neighbors’ concerns over the expansion, the Planning Commission voted to reverse its previous decision and recommend to City Council to deny SKB’s application.

At the July 27 meeting, members voted to recommend to the City Council to approve SKB’s plans to expand 113 acres, but the neighbors were not notified of SKB’s plans, or that they would be discussed at that meeting.

After the City was notified that most of those that would be affected by the expansion were not notified, a second public hearing was held during Tuesday’s meeting to give them the opportunity to voice their concerns. Members Michael Reed and John Schmisek both noted that the Planning Commission made its decision based on the fact that no residents were at the prior meeting to voice concerns, which was a big reason the Planning Commission overturned its previous decision.

A representative from SKB told the Planning Commission that if current trends continue, the landfill has about 10 years left and that the expansion would add 15-18 years.

The plan for expansion also included construction of a new street expansion between Highway 55 and Ehler’s Path.

What were the neighbors' concerns?

Many of the Rosemount residents who voiced concern at the meeting were concerned over environmental impacts, noise from the trucks and nearby road and the eyesore created by the landfill.

The landfill also shares a water aquifer with those who live near it, causing the residents to be concerned about water contamination. SKB said that landfill and groundwater are tested by county officials 14 times per year.

Community members also expressed concern about how often the trucks entering SKB were tested for hazardous material. SKB responded that at least one truck for every "job" is tested and that for jobs that have over ten trucks, every tenth truck is tested.

The landfill has already had an impact on the property of Rosemount resident and local business owner Brenda Soogi, who bought her property in 1989 and told the Planning Commission that earlier owners of SKB offered to buy her property-for $20,000 less than what she had paid for it.

SKB representatives have asked Soogi multiple times if they would be interested in selling, but she said it's more complicated than that.

"I've had my business here for 30 years," she told the Planning Commission. "If I walk off my property, I am unemployed."

For Soogi's dog training company, Dogwood Tails and Trails, she must have 20 acres, but nowhere in Dakota County has that much land for under $1 million, she told the Planning Commission.

Soogi's family has had other issues living next to SKB as well. For three consecutive springs, she said her yard got covered in litter from the landfill.

SKB's representative said the litter was entirely not coming from the landfill, as it has nets to prevent litter from blowing away, but Soogi said that the nets are rarely up. She said she now worries about her animals eating garbage.

Soogi also spoke with Terry Muller, who works for Dakota County's Environmental Resources Department. Muller sent her a list of SKB violations dating back to 1998.

The SKB representative told the Planning Commission that the violations just meant that SKB had a certain amount of time to fix issues within the landfill and that it was never given official citations.

SKB only responded to the claims that the Planning Commission specifically asked about.

Mary Her and her daughter, Faith, also spoke at the meeting. They were both concerned about longterm effects of the landfill. Mary said that her property will stay in the family for generations to come and both her and her daughter expressed concern about longterm environmental impacts, as well as what the landfill will do to the family's property value.

Responding to the concerns over environmental impacts, the SKB representative said that the landfill has two liners that are underlain by two to three feet of clay to help prevent potential pollution and leakage. He also said that residents do not need to worry about air pollution since the landfill doesn't produce methane gas.