The Notes: Week of November 28 - December 2, 2022

Hello, All!  Thanks for patiently waiting for this week's alderman blog post.  Unfortunately, there's not much to share with you this week.  Sorry to disappoint!

This week is Fifth Week (further explained here) in City of Appleton government so there are no meetings whatsoever scheduled for this coming week.  Instead of a rundown of what to expect this week (which is.... nothing!), I would like to briefly address an item mentioned last week which affects District 13 neighborhoods and will come up for discussion and a vote by the full council next week: a tentative agreement on the Outagamie County Holland Road (what we know of as the corner of French Road and Northland Avenue/CTH OO) landfill expansion.  

As many of you already know, the county has planned the expansion of the landfill on the northwest corner (nearest City of Appleton borders).  As a part of the proposed expansion, the county is required to negotiate with the neighboring municipalities regarding this expansion.  The major areas of concern for neighboring property owners are as follows:

• Visual Screening (to keep us from having to look at piles of garbage),
• Water Drainage/Erosion Control,
• Windblown Refuse (escaping the fenced landfill site), 
• Excess Seagull population, and 
• Odor Control 

Each of these items is addressed clearly in the proposed/tentative agreement.  And I believe that District 13 neighbors can be confident that the county is making and will continue to make good faith efforts to manage the above concerns. 

The county will create and maintain berms to block neighboring views of the proposed expanded landfill cell and continue to manage erosion and drainage from the landfill site as they have successfully done thus far.  There will be a daily cover applied at the landfill and crews will be dispatched to neighboring areas should there be wind events which cause any windblown refuse in the area.  Luckily for City of Appleton residents bordering or near the landfill, prevailing winds usually blow away from our properties, thus making this something of less concern for us.  The county has already employed a predator bird service and some air "cannons" which are used to help disburse the seagull population near the dump.  These services will continue and be enhanced as a part of the proposed landfill expansion.  And perhaps of greatest concern to our neighborhoods is odor control.  Again, we are fortunate in this most winds take the scents/debris away from City of Appleton properties... but there are south winds from time to time.  

There are three things being done and proposed to help address this odor concern for us: 

1. A gas collection system: The county has contracted with a company which will capture and use landfill gases to generate renewable/reusable energy.  This company is currently constructing their gas-trapping systems on the landfill site now.  Once this is up and running, there should be a dramatic decrease in odor emissions from the landfill as this company desires to capture as much reusable gas a possible to maximize the effectiveness of their operations.
     
2. A odor suppression system: The landfill currently employs a system of emitting a "fresh scent" on the borders/fence lines of the existing active cell of the landfill to try to counteract the odorous landfill smells.  This system will be expanded to the fence line of the proposed northwest cell and enhanced/upgraded to what landfill management calls a "Febreeze system" which uses an odor neutralizing agent which will chemically attract odor molecules.  There will also be open data available to the surrounding municipalities regarding how, when, and where this system is employed so that its effectiveness can be measured.
     
3. A public website: The county will maintain a webpage on which citizens can submit information and comments/complaints regarding the landfill as a neighbor.  And the surrounding municipalities will be able to hold the landfill management and the county accountable through the required reporting by the county of these comments.  The county will provide a record of any and all comments/complaints and their subsequent addressing of those concerns to the surrounding municipalities in a biannual meeting between the parties.  I believe this to be one of the most important pieces of the puzzle here.  In the worst case, if the county does not properly deal with formal complaints from landfill neighbors (if a situation arises to require it), the city will have reason to go back to the county to force their contractual compliance to deal with any complaints.  I suspect that no situation such as this will arise.  But it's good that we (individual property owners and the city) have this system available to us should it be needed!

The city will also receive small payment from the county through a grant program.  This is a minimal grant amount of $100,000/year for 15 years, to be divided amongst the surrounding municipalities.  Appleton will receive 25% of this amount ($25,000/year for a 15-year grand total of $375,000) for road maintenance/repair, site visits, and administration of this agreement.  The city has also entered into a separate agreement with the landfill for the processing of the landfill's leachate (the liquid waste that comes from waters settling through landfill waste) where the city will be more than appropriately compensated for the extra processing required and extra "wear and tear" on the city's wastewater system. 

I believe that all of the concerns of neighbors are addressed in this agreement and expect to vote in favor of it at the meeting of the full council next week.  But I am always interested in your feedback in this regard.  Please let me know your thoughts.

And with that... I'll close what I thought would be a short blog post but which turned out to be quite extensive.  Thanks for hanging in there, reading to the end!  I'll be back next week with more information on what we'll see on the agenda for Full Council Week.  Have a great last-days-of-November and first-days-of-December week!