ST. MARY’S TODAY

WILDEWOOD — Water wells contaminated with garbage wash no biggie if the county can make $2.5 million, two St. Mary’s commissioners think.
The idea of recouping $5million in investments in two short years seemed just too sexy to resist, even if wetlands are present at the site by the county’s own admission. No worries about traffic mitigation the county is telling citizens, just forget 50 additional heavy trailers would ply all through the already choking Route 4, Route 234 and Route 301.
No way, say a gang of three local lawyers, almost in chorus. The proposed St. Andrews transfer station may not see the light of the day came to the public fore during a hearing on the application of Public Works and Transportation Department Director George Erichsen last Thursday at St. Mary’s Board of Appeals.
Dan Raley (D. Great Mills) and Tom Mattingly (D. Leonardtown), two three-term commissioners on the board of St. Mary’s County Commissioners, were present for three long hours at the meeting, showing the high stakes St. Andrews Transfer Station has for St. Mary’s county.
Erichsen’s application hit a major snag as the gang of three local lawyers, former county attorney John Norris, Bill McKissick and Kim Reynolds, spoke against the transfer station, each from a different perspective.
The gang of three lawyers is determined to fight the county plans, tooth and nail. And if an ancient proverb is to be believed, only painters and lawyers can change black to white.
At a meeting room at his office at 44731 St. Andrew’s Church Road Wednesday morning, Norris draws the blinds and points out to his backyard. “The transfer station would be 400 feet from this building,” he said. “I can see what they are doing right now,” he adds. Norris insists the permit to build the transfer station long expired, and asks why the transfer station plan go through the planning commission first.
McKissick, representing First Colony PUD, in his written presentation before the BoA, said there was inconsistency on what types of waste will be handled at the transfer station.
He pointed to the extreme dangers of construction on a waste disposal cell dating back from the 1960s, which was capped with soil cover, adding the structural integrity of this capping material is questionable and the state of decomposition in the former waste cell is unclear.
McKissick asked the board to specifically state which type of wastes would be allowed at the transfer station. “Additionally, although it appears that this is already the intent of the County, we would also suggest that the board’s approval of the applications specifically state that the deposit of non-County refuse at the facility be prohibited.”
At the BoA, Erichsen applied for conditional use approval pursuant for what he called Chapter 25 of the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance to construct a transfer station at the head of St. Mary’s River.
Erichsen also requested variance from the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance to reduce the required setback from the nearest home or institutional building and to reduce the required setback from a potable water supply or wellhead. This was initially not mentioned in a “secret” blueprint handed to the commissioners in October.
Joe Densford, represented the BoA, while County Attorney Christy Chesser and her deputy Colin Keohan watched the proceedings like silent spectators.
Interestingly, the owners of so-called Planned Unit Development at Wildewood are looking the other way, though residents there are going to be impacted in a big way.
Each of the nearly hundred thousand citizens “from a two-day-old to 120 year-old” in the words of Raley generates on an average five pounds of solid waste each day. On learning about the snag, local activist Linda Vallandingham asked, “Where are we now going to dispose our waste?”
When Erichsen presented the plan before the previous St. Mary’s Board of County Commissioners in October, he did not provide any copies to reporters, saying it was only a rough draft for the commissioners’ study. Commissioner Larry Jarboe (R. Golden Beach) specifically asked Erichsen to provide a copy to the media for dissemination to public. When requested, Erichsen asked this scribe to take the copy he gave to County Administrator George Forrest. Forrest, however, declined the request. Finally, Jarboe gave his personal copy to ST. MARY’S TODAY.
The blueprint did let not one but quite a few cats out of the bag, however. A question there asks: “Will a Conditional Use or rezoning be required?” And Erichsen replies “Yes.”
Secondly, the blueprint said wooded buffers currently exist, and no changes to the buffers are proposed. “There is currently a 500-foot wooded buffer to residences to the west, and the site is over 1000 feet from the property line to the northeast,” the blueprint said, but just nine weeks later Erichsen proposed reducing the buffer.
When contacted, Erichsen said he did not have much to add on the matter, other than the fact that as per the Board of Appeals a new site to situate the transfer station at the 207-acre St. Andrews Landfill will now have to be found. To find another site may pose a major challenge, because of the steep slopes and highly erodible soils.
He recalled the site at St. Andrews has been designated a solid waste facility since the 1960s. He said all of St. Mary’s county commercial traffic that takes route 4 and goes over the bridge, will now be diverted from the intersection at Routes 4 and 5. “The trajectory of the trailer trucks would be Route 4, to Route 234 and onto the bridge at 301,” Erichsen told ST. MARY’S TODAY Thursday evening.
Erichsen said 50 trailer trucks from the transfer station would ply on the new route every day.
McKissick counters Erichsen’s logic as flawed. “This truck traffic will have a substantial impact on the Route 4 and Route 235 intersection which already has an F level of service,” he earlier told the BoA.
Leonardtown mayor Chip Norris has already objected to the proposed traffic route.
Norris said every new development has to submit a traffic mitigation plan and asked why St. Andrew’s Transfer Station should be treated differently?
The transfer station was earlier scheduled to be completed by September, with extended construction hours from 6 am to 8 pm. Once operational, the timings would be 8 am to 4.30 pm, Monday to Saturday, with staff posted at the site for approximately ten hours. “Waste will be accepted during these hours, but processing and loading will continue until 6 pm or when all waste on the tipping floor has been removed and loaded on trailers.”
The blueprint further said, “Overnight storage of full trailers may be necessary if the final destination is unable to accept the material if shipped. Night transport may occur, at the discretion of the contractor which is awarded the transfer contract.”
“All vehicles using the site will be brought onto the property via St. Andrews Church Road,” according to the project’s blueprint. To minimize the potential for vehicle accidents onsite, Erichsen proposed to station a spotter at the site.
One of the major drawbacks of the project seemed to be lack a health safety plan specific for the huge operation. “The county proposes to implement its current Health and Safety Plan, which covers all County facilities, for the proposed transfer/processing facility,” the blueprint which was in scant supply reads.
The blueprint said the county planned to accommodate 90,000 tons of material through the transfer station in its first year of operation. This quantity is anticipated to increase to 100,620 tons in its fifth year of generation and to grow to 143,700 tons per year by 2025. The life expectancy of the now aborted transfer station was supposed to be 20 years.
The transfer station issue could become a second test for newly elected County Commission President Jack Russell, the only person new to the commissioners table. “By George” is how Russell apparently reacted on his first test, alienating himself from his most loyal supporters.
Russell sided with the recommendation of retired army colonel and country administrator, George Forrest, not to telecast the budget work sessions.
“He’s a very intelligent man and would do well if he follows his instinct,” says longtime resident Jack Witten. Would Russell again say “By George”?
Erichsen’s blueprint states good housekeeping measures and security precautions will minimize nuisance odors and control vectors like flies and mosquitoes.
It stinks to have a lawyer’s office next door, Erichsen might be telling himself. It stinks even more to have a transfer station in your backyard, Norris told the Board of Appeals. Even now, a poop-like stench is released in the air at the St. Andrews Convenience Center when trailers come to collect the used oil and anti-freeze.
As the issue is highly sensitive and controversial, BoA members led by George Allan Hayden and Greg Callaway would visit the transfer station site to smell the stench for themselves.
Vallandingham attributed the problem to the lack of futuristic planning at the level of St. Mary’s Board of County Commissioners, adding that allowing unchecked developments, including the so-called Planned Unit Developments have no come to haunt the county. “Seems like the issue of unchecked development has returned to bite at their tails,” Vallandingham said