A special meeting last week of the Grays Harbor County commissioners about the new Waste Connections transfer station and planned highway traffic signal on Highway 12 at Clemons Road offered little new information.

The commissioners held the meeting in the conference room with representatives from county staff, Waste Connections, SCJ Alliance — a consultant hired by Waste Connections — and the state Department of Transportation.

About 30 people attended the meeting.

Background

A new transfer station for solid waste will be built off a private road on North Clemons Road, west of Montesano. The new facility will replace the current facility west of Central Park near Lake Aberdeen, which Waste Connections says presents environmental and safety concerns. To mitigate traffic concerns, Waste Connections is paying to install a traffic signal at the intersection on Highway 12. That signal, when triggered, will give a red light to highway traffic.

Critics of the plan are saying the traffic study was not comprehensive enough, there was no opportunity for public input, and some are opposed to the general location of the new transfer station.

Waste Connections has said it followed protocol and paid for a traffic study — completed by SCJ Alliance — and that traffic study was approved by the DOT. The county has said it’s not a county project, however the county is the lead agency for a State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) checklist for the proposed facility.

Despite having nearly completed the SEPA checklist, the county recently withdrew a determination of nonsignficance which was filed on Feb. 23. Jane Hewitt of the county’s planning department said the withdrawal is in an effort to allow for additional public input.

Comments

Following short presentations from the representatives, totalling about 45 minutes, the meeting was opened to public comment.

Jarred Figlar-Barnes of Elma noted his concerns. Figlar-Barnes works for the state Department of Transportation but was only commenting as a resident, not as a representative of the agency.

During the presentations, Dan Schooler of Waste Connections had said the company strives to be “a good neighbor.” Figlar-Barnes used that same vocabulary while stating his concerns.

“The residents who live near your proposed location certainly have concerns, and if you’re a good neighbor you take every step you can to include the people you’re going to be impacting. … This public meeting should have happened without people getting upset,” Figlar-Barnes said.

“There are a lot of issues with putting a signal at the top of that hill. The fact that you’re stopping people on a hill. Clam tides — our entire road system goes at capacity or over capacity when we have a clam tide. That signal if it’s activated, it will back people up into the valley. … What about icy conditions and the winter time and trucks have to stop, can you imagine that? I don’t want to … the other issue is people try to beat lights, especially in a high-speed setting, this is 55 mph and people regularly go about 70 mph out there,” he added.

Figlar-Barnes also addressed his concern with the traffic study. The traffic study looked at three solutions (referred to technically as “intersection controls”): a traffic signal, a roundabout, and no changes to the intersection. Figlar-Barnes asked how many other solutions were reviewed, other than the three noted in the traffic study.

Bob Jewell of SCJ Alliance said the traffic study aimed to review only “practical” solutions.

Figlar-Barnes then suggested other solutions that may or may not be “practical.”

“To say that there are no other alternatives, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that — one that was raised already was lowering the speed limit. That’s an incredibly low-cost alternative, and that could actually address some of the issues… the fact that that simple alternative wasn’t even considered in the (traffic study) is highly suspicious,” Figlar-Barnes said. He also noted the possibility for a super street, which uses U-turns for left turns.

“A little bit more thought could have been put into it,” he concluded.

John Rabey, a resident, raised some similar concerns but he also noted that the sun “blinds” drivers as they ascend the hill approaching the intersection. That could be concerning if traffic is stopped at the light at the top of the hill.

Randy Gibson, a resident who drives large trucks for a living, warned that the traffic signal and potential backups caused by the signal could lead to “seriously delayed response times to get anywhere west of Clemons Road” for emergency vehicles.

He further admonished the project.

“I find it extremely selfish of Lemay (Waste Connections) to even think about trying to put a stoplight in there and building in that location. Too much residential property on the other side of the street and they should find a more deserted area where they’re not going to bother so many people,” Gibson said. “It’s not fair to the community and the hundreds of thousands of people who are going to be inconvenienced driving State Route 12. None of it is right… Lemay should do the right thing and find a better location where they’re not going to inconvenience people.”

Another concern noted during public comment is the issue that the traffic signal could allow for further development in the area, and further development could eventually put residents’ drinking wells in jeopardy.

No action

Representatives of the project had noted that the intersection already was considered “non-conforming” in that the design of the intersection is not considered adequate to handle the amount of traffic it receives. Any potential development there would have been asked to address traffic concerns at the intersection before building, they said.

County Commissioner Randy Ross seemed to take issue with that contention asking if other intersections are non-conforming and why they’re not being upgraded. Those intersections, the DOT representative said, are not considered priorities to the agency. The only reason the Clemons Road intersection is being upgraded is because of the new development of the transfer station.

Ultimately, no action was taken during the meeting, and none of the representatives hinted that any changes would be made to the project moving forward. Only the SEPA process will begin again, and that was decided before the March 30 meeting.

In 2014, the county signed a 20-year no-bid contract with Waste Connections for solid waste services. That contract includes language regarding both the current transfer facility and a new transfer facility.

The contract limits the county’s ability to oppose the new transfer station, stating “The county shall cooperate with the company in connection with the design, permitting and construction of the new facility.”

The location of the new transfer station was announced in 2015. The potential traffic signal was briefly discussed by county officials in early 2016, but the county made no recommendation either way. A traffic study was completed and submitted to the state DOT later in 2016 and it was approved by that agency.