05-30-1984 Council Minutes Special Meeting

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MINUTES OF A SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING HELD MAY 3H, 1984. PAGE 3 Mr . Van Nest stated that last Tuesday morning he was at the PCA Board meeting and they have ordered a public hearing on the interceptor . This will be held before a hearing examiner from the Attorney General ' s office sometime within the next few months . This hearing requires a 30 day notice, therefore the earliest would be early July. A decision as a result of the hearing will probably not be made until September or October . The pubiic hearing is what we have been after , where someone will �ay out all the facts in front of an impartial examiner . The Lake Minnetonka Watershed � � District is interested in our position they have sent a letter to the P.C.A. stating that they are supportive of our contested case hearinq being held on this subject. I also have been before the Executive Committee of the Lake Minnetonka Conservation District and they voted to send a letter , by the Chairman Bob Brown, to the Metropolitan Council also supporting a public hearing on this matter . We also appeared before the Systems Committee of the Metropolitan Council , which is like the old Physical Development Committee. We have been before them three times, the first time they supported the idea of a public hearing and they passed a resolution requesting the Metropolitan Council to join the City of Orono in requesting a contested case hearir�g . That resolution wasadopted bythe Metropolitan Council and was the reason that we got our hearing . At the last committee meeting which washeldTuesdayafternoonthe same day that in the morning the PCA called a publ ic hearing an incredible thing happened , the Systems Committee decided to withdraw their request for a public hearing and to support the installation of an interceptor . They did that withoutany discussion as to the issues or the concerns and position. It was a typical case of this Metropolitan Council out of tune of what they are suppose to be involved with. Their whoie concern was that they were a co-petitioner for this interceptor with the Waste Cor�trol Commission and their whole concern was how could they have a different position than the Waste Control Commission. We tried to explain to them that the Waste Control Commission was forced into this position by the terms of the draft permit issued by the PCA, which said that you have to phase the plant out. At the preser�t time we are in the . process of prepar ing a contested case hear ing before a . state hearing exaiminer . Adams asked Van Nest who would be presenting the arguments for the upgrading? Van Nest stated that it would be Orono' s responsibility to present the information.