The following is an insiders view of how one organization battling Waste Management (formerly WMX and USA Waste) has organized and acts to stop WMI. See Their web site for details and updates as to what is happening. Click any of the links below for further information on Schrod's organizing.
Now, how did we afford all of that?! We fund-raise almost non-stop. We've had spaghetti suppers, pancake breakfasts, garage sales, auctions, sold pies, sold candles, sold SCROD t-shirts and bumper stickers that say "Indiana the Landfill State", sold telephone calling cards, stood at 4-way stops and collected money, put out collection cans, walked in parades and begged, sent mailers, we even had a "Cowpie bingo". We gridded off a concrete area, sold the squares and brought a cow in. You guessed it! The square that the cow "dumped" in was the winner. We got that one from a book I read. Sally Teets did that in Ohio. Our theme was "We're tired of being dumped on". One of our members' Mom passed away and the memorials came to us. Next week, we are having a "SCROD Day" at a local restaurant. We are telling everyone to go eat there and we'll get a percentage of the total day's take.
Regarding our political support: At first, we didn't have as much. Our problem was that because of the population down here(vs up north), we had less representation on the Boards. Because the other end didn't want a landfill, they kept voting for it to be put here and we were always outnumbered. We finally got fed up. We picketed the Mayor(then Chairman of the Solid Waste Board) and boycotted his town. Then one of the votes flipped on us, so we picketed her and boycotted her town. We picketed a political fundraiser of another one who was running for Commissioner. She had flipped her vote on us too. The ones that flipped their votes came out only days before in our favor. We looked at campaign contributions and were not secret about it and spent 3 weeks auditing the Waste District. "Kept hearing "Follow the money trail".
A group of seven of our fund-raising committee decided to get red garbage cans and wear them. They cut out the bottoms, put lawnchair straps over the shoulders, bolted the lid onto a hardhat and then decorated the whole works with rats, bugs,signs, etc. Everyone LOVES them. We take them to the meetings and parades, etc. We are past our radical stage, but we will again (in a minute) if anyone screws around with us.
We are dealing with 4 entities regarding the permit: 1.) The Plan Commission who is the advisory board to the Lake County Council 2.) The Lake County Council - the legislative body. 3.) The Lake County Solid Waste District 4.) IDEM. The Plan Commission voted unananimously 8-0 against the rezoning of the property. That recommendation was given to the Council. There are 5 statutory criteria they had to follow such as the best use of the land, maintain the property values, blends in with surrounding uses, etc. The Council in a 4-3 vote overturned the Plan Commission's recommendation. The Council accepted a last-minute amendment of 8 cents per ton to go to the Council. The contract was already in place with the Waste District when this happened - a vote of the Waste District which was 13-12. We have "north-end" Council members on tape and in minutes stating "I had to protect my family", "The best defense against the J-Pit is the Hickory Hills site". They didn't follow zoning statute one iota.
We filed a suit against the Waste District which we just lost. We challenged the membership of the Board. We contend that there were 2 illegal members who should have been removed in 1993. Indiana Code allows for an additional member to the Board if they are representing a final disposal facility in their municipality. The Griffith LF closed in 1993. So did the East. Chgo. incinerator, so those guys should no longer be on the Board. If they weren't, we would've won the vote. Anyway, we lost that one.
We currently have a suit pending that had final arguments last Tuesday. The suit challenges the amendment to the contract at the Council level - the 8 cents per ton. The way it works is that the Council should've remanded it back to the Plan Commission because of the change. They didn't.
Indiana Code has a 1/2 mile setback to a platted subdivision in Lake County. In 1995, two landowners filed for subdivisions, south of the site and east of the site, both adjacent. There has been a long battle for those people. Locally, the judge found that they had to open their financial records to USA Waste-Hickory Hills. I believe USA was just trying to show that they didn't have the money to do this, that it was just a SCROD ploy, etc. In fact, that is none of USA's business and SCROD has nothing to do with that other than the landowners are Directors of SCROD. The landowners appealed it and recieved a favorable ruling from the Indiana Court of Appeals on October 1st. I believe that it can now go back to the Plan Commission and they can recieve their zoning approval. We'll see what happens. If that is the case, 1/2 mile has been chopped off of the landfill footprint on two sides. There is already a platted subdivision on the northwest side.
This Tuesday, the 20th is the Public Hearing on the pending zoning change. The Council directed the Plan Commission to begin proceedings to change the property back to A1 - agricultural, based on the 5 statutory criteria. We believe that will happen unless for some reason, USA is successful in getting another TRO against the Plan Commission. They did that once before when the Plan Commission tried to hear this. This gets so long and confusing. When the Waste District negated their contract(which the judge reinstated), the Plan Commission tried to rezone. Since the judge reinstated the contract, the Plan Commission had no basis for changing the zoning because the motion from the Council was based on the Waste District's action and USA was successful in getting a TRO issued against the Plan Commission. A second motion was made at the Council level taking out all reference to what the Waste District had done, thus our upcoming hearing.
On Thursday, the 22nd is a Public Hearing at the Waste District level. A $29,000 study was just completed by the District which shows that Lake County has ample disposal capacity. A hearing, according to statute, is necessary to include this information in their 20 Year Plan which is submitted and approved to IDEM.
The company has threatened to sue the County. One of the attorney's stated(in the newspaper) that when they are done, it will be Hickory Hills County, not Lake County. They have upset the majority of our local officials with their strong-arm tactics, thus another reason for our support.
The IDEM statutory clock started ticking again on the 13th. It has apx. 1 month to make a decision whether to issue or deny the permit. We are fully prepared to appeal any decision which may not be in our favor. A group in Anderson(NE of Indianapolis) has successfully fought for 21 years.
Last week, an investigative reporter and a TV producer came out to do a story. We will be the first in a series on out-of-state waste in Indiana. As I stood there in my "Indiana the Landfill State" t-shirt, in the middle of a bean field, I thought "The timing couldn't be better!"
One other thing about our political support: My group teases me because I used to "stalk" the Governor. Every time he was around, I was in his face with something new. I wrote him letters, called his office, had meetings with his Exec. Energy & Env. Aide. He finally appointed me to the State Board - probably in an effort to get me off his back! : ) Also, I'm now chairing the campaign of our State Rep. in this area. He's up for re-election, hopefully. He's helped a lot and it's time to return the favor. He will help more.
Also, we let our elected officials work on the other elected officials. Don't know what they did but it worked and we got support that we didn't initially have.
USA offered BIG BUCKS to the county. The Waste District gets $1.00 for in-county waste, an additional $1.00 for out-of-county(state) waste and IDEM gets 60(?)cents per ton. The additional $1.00 to the District is going to get split up between all of the municipalities - 19 of them. The contract says that theHost community will get 50 cents per ton and the school district will get 50 cents per ton. However, also in the contract is that the Board can decide if they want to divert the Host Community & School District fees for other stuff for the first 8 years. The City of Gary is suppose to get ALL of the money from the unincorporated areas for the life of the contract. The City of Gary was also supposed to get a $4M loan to help pay for closure of the Gary Dump. IDEM gave Gary the proceeds of a $6M fine from US Steel for the closure so they don't need the $4M anymore. USA advertised something like 317M to the county over 30 years.
Regarding our IDEM Public Hearing: Our support comes from the unincorporated areas, and both towns - each apx. 5-7 miles away on either side of us. There are many in the county that support us but the majority of our support is from within a 10 mile radius. For several years, we've had a huge 8 ft by 12 ft. sign in one town, 2 other smaller ones maybe 4 X 8 in the other town and continually update those signs with the changable letters. For instance, right now, this weeks public hearings are advertised on them. Last week, we had one of our fundraisers advertised. When it's time for a big meeting or hearing, we post the signs and use our telephone tree. It is a list of all people who have contributed to us. .We give presentations to civic organizations, schools, anyone who will listen and also try to stay in the paper with letters to the editor.
Most people realize what one semi every minute and 1/2 will mean to our communities and realize the significance of our groundwater. There are always the people that either say "Oh, it's a done deal, save your money" or "What?! I thought you won!" None of it is easy. However, the old adage "The squeaky tire gets the grease"(or something like that) is true. We just keep on flapping our jaws and writing our letters. This waste company had no clue that they'd be up against such an awesome force! I'm sure that they thought they'd steamroll our little farming community. Our SCROD Board is quite remarkable. We have a fellow with a geology degree(not practicing), a State Conservation Officer, a County Councilman(next county over), the sign-maker, a person who spent 23 years on our local school board, a high-up in the Farm Bureau. . .There are 11 of us. We are an official 501C3 corp so all donations to us are tax-deductible.
Regarding the IDEM decision: On July 9th, IDEM sent a letter to USA stating that their proposal was too big(would be the largest in the State) and that IDEM might support a LF apx. 2/3 of the size which was proposed. USA decided to submit a modification in which the footprint was left the same and they just chopped off the slopes(future vertical expansion!). The process has not started over. The clock was stopped a few times, either at the request of IDEM - for more information, or at the request of USA. It started up again on Oct. 13th and we now have until apx. Nov. 13th until IDEM announces their decision.
The week was HORRENDOUS(a lot of work and preparation) and also INCREDIBLE(we're going to win)! First, Friday was the last day of written public comment regarding the permit application. We submitted a report regarding the waste generation of Lake County that was very detailed and I worked very closely with our Indy atty on it.
Tuesday, the 22nd was supposed to be the Plan Commission Public Hearing regarding the zone change back to Agricultural. That was also a lot of preparation and at 3:20PM that day, a judge issued a Temporary Restraining Order against the hearing, so the Plan Commission couldn't take any action and that hearing was canceled.
On Thursday, the 22nd was the Waste District Public Hearing regarding the adoption of the recently completed capacity report into the 20 Year Plan. The State of Indiana has a Need Statute which says that a shortfall of capacity must be proven in order to permit a landfill. To make a long story short, there was a motion to adopt the Capacity Report into the 20 Year Plan and recognize that there was no shortfall of landfill space. The vote passed 11-10. The Board is the body charged with determining a shortfall and they recognized that there is none due to the 20 available final disposal facilities within an 85 mile radius to the population center. With that motion, I believe IDEM has no choice but to DENY the permit application.
We've gained a lot of respect in the last year or two. We just KEEP THE PRESSURE ON!