Friday, February 27, 2004
The health board imposed restrictions after approving the company's license.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- A hearing this week on an appeal of the city's restrictions on a Martin Luther King Drive landfill will likely be rescheduled after no one representing the city showed up.
In December, the city health board passed a resolution placing restrictions on Warren Hills, the company that manages Warren Recycling. The company operates a construction and demolition debris landfill, which residents have complained for years generates a rotten-egg, hydrogen-sulfide odor that makes them sick.
The restrictions require the facility to minimize pollutants in storm water runoff, not accept more than 1,500 tons per day without approval from the board of health and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and keep the hours of operation from 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. during the week and from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
The company appealed that decision to the state Environmental Review Appeals Commission, and a preliminary hearing on that appeal was scheduled for Wednesday.
No representative
A spokeswoman for the ERAC said a representative for the city health district didn't show up for the preliminary hearing.
The city will be sent a show cause order, asking for reasons no one attended, and the hearing could be rescheduled.
Greg Hicks, city law director, said the city received a notice about a hearing but wanted more information. The law department called ERAC, he said, trying to determine the topic of the hearing.
The department also wanted to know if the hearing could be done via telephone conference, Hicks said, rather than have a law department attorney drive to Columbus for a 10-to-15-minute hearing.
But no one from ERAC got back to the law department, Hicks said.
Restrictions imposed
The health board approved the company's license last November but imposed the restrictions after a December meeting attended by several residents and officials from the state and federal environmental protection agencies.
Our Lives Count, a citizens group formed because of concerns about the landfill, is planning a class-action lawsuit against the facility.
denise_dick@vindy.com