03-23-1992 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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i:: ¥'■0 p:te'p:Ni‘ i-. mm,- S- : ^ t- '5^^' .4«' II' feM: lli^ -' ■ r Tv 0/. T. ■ ■ :• :i: T-v:(m'.•vk: M s KS m0.0 r «'% ■i^M: ^ k'■•t' !(:. V, Jt star Tribune Established 1867 Roger Parkinson Publisher I'^d President Joel R. Kramer Executive Eu..or Tim J. McGuire Managing Editor Roben J. While Editonal Editor 12A Tuesday/August 21/1990 Healthy skepticism on turning ash to asphalt ^ .1 I * . ^ t L»'\*l I r’ltPIs il safe 10 pave local roads wuh incinerator ash? That question should matter to every person wlio drives Minnesota's highways or strolls its curb sides. And until the answer is plain, drivers and strollers should resist Hennepin County’s enthusi asm for turning ash from its downtown incinerator into asphalt. At this point, the plan to test the idea this year on a county road looks hasty and risky. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) should defer it until public doubts are addressed. meet federal Ic.ad limits, townspeople cite seicniinc views that lliose limits may not be sufl'icicnl to protect health. As the road yields to tralTic and harsh leather, they Tea., the asphalt cou’d be ground into a loxie powder v hieh could coniami- naic soils aiu! waterways -- and which playing children might swallow and inhale. • At first glance, the ash-tc-asphalt deal looks like a neat way to make tons of in mcrator waste disap pear. That bit of magic depends on a Georgia firm. Municipal Services Corp.. that says it can change dangerous ash into innocuous pellets for use in road paving. To prove its ease, the company wants to test the ash-laced asphalt on a 1.000-loot strip of County Rd. 81 in Dayton. The two-year exp-ri- ntent could be the first step toward pavi.ng other county roads — and ultimately, roads all over the state — with ash pellets. The MPCx'« citizen board is scheduled to decide in late September wh»'thcr to approve a permit for the project. The projcel’s defenders insist that won’t happen, and that extensive tests will assure the experi- metu’s safety. But several environmental groups have pointed to holes in the draft permit for the project: It prescribes no tests for measuring the antount and clfcc«s of dust that may wear off the road. It lacks a requirement, included in earlier drafts, that a sedimentation basin be built to monitor and contain rui.off fri*r*i the road. And the cnvironincnialists > nlicizc the experiment’s two-year time span — too short a diraiion, they say, to determine whether the asphalt will hold up safely over lime. 1 hose concerns arc cciiocd by 32 state legislators, who hove urged the MPCA to deny the permit un'il the flaws arc fixed. All of this has made some of the folks in Dayton fretful, and fir good reason They complain that the pellets slated for :csiing will include fly ash — smokestack residue which often contains hazard ous amounts of lead, cadmium and other heavy metals. Though the asphalt itself is expected to just County Commissioner Jeff Spartz shrugs off resis tance to the Dayton test as another ease of the ‘‘Nir.ilD '■ (not m my back yard) syndrome. Bui Dayton s arc right to insist that the lest — in which tl.v V w ill serve as guim'u pigs — be both safe and thorougli. Until that demand is met, skepti cism about i>aving with ash ts the best policy.