A public hearing for a proposed waste transfer station and recycling center in Carlsborg has been delayed. Again.
A hearing set for July 21 — five-and-a-half months after the original hearing was scheduled — was postponed last week by Clallam County staff until November 2022, after representatives with Olympic Disposal asked for another delay in a motion to the Hearing Examiner on July 13.
“Olympic requires additional time to complete and submit the traffic study and landscaping plans and to provide them to DCD for review and consideration substantially in advance of the hearing,” the company said in the motion.
In a 20-page report to the Hearings Examiner on Jan. 26, Clallam County staff recommended that Olympic Disposal System’s Zoning Conditional Use Permit be denied.
Following a pre-conference hearing on Feb. 3, Clallam County senior planner Donella Clark said the public hearing would be continued on July 21. Representatives from Citizens for Carlsborg, the City of Port Angeles and Olympic Disposal/Waste Connections agreed to continue the public hearing based on the staff’s recommendations and a county environmental review, Clark said.
Following a discussion between Clark and representatives with Olympic Disposal in late June, however, legal representatives for the company asked the Hearing Examiner to continue the hearing once more.
No firm date for the public hearing in November has been announced.
A decision on the application will be made by the county Hearing Examiner within 10 working days after the record closes, county officials noted; any person may submit a written request to the Department of Community Development to receive a notice of the decision once it is made.
Contact Clark at 360-417-2594 or donella.clark@clallamcountywa.gov for more information or to comment.
View the proposal and corresponding documents at clallam.net/LandUse; click on “Hearing Examiner,” and then “Open Hearing Examiner Cases.”
The proposal has met with numerous objections from community members, business leaders — including the Citizens For Carlsborg Group (see carlsborg.org) — and, in a letter to the county hearings examiner in June, from the Clallam County Economic Development Council.
“The transfer station proposed in the application is inconsistent with the CCSWMP [Clallam County Solid Waste Management Plan], would generate an immense amount of traffic not viable for the location, would create a safety hazard for Greywolf Elementary School, and is not supported by hundreds of members of the public,” EDC representatives wrote on June 10. “The application should be denied.”
County staff wrote in their recommendation, “Numerous nuisances, such as odor, noise, traffic, and even an aesthetic impact have been identified that will be created by this proposal.
“The proposal does not align with the vision of the Carlsborg Industrial zone located within the Carlsborg UGA, where the allowed uses are intended to be low nuisance, low intensity industrial uses.”
