Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Planning Department Monday, October 23 rd, 2017 Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Courtroom I. Call to Order Art Villasenor, Chair II. Roll Call Quorum is present III. Members in Attendance Art Villasenor, Chair, Audrey Aspholm, Vice- Chair, Frank Fitzpatrick, Vince Labbe, John Lombardi, Mary Kae Massey, Jene Matzkanin, Annette Smith IV. Members Absent Staff in Attendance Approval of Minutes September 11th, 2017 Dale Strommen Chas Ariss, Planning Director, Carlye Hansen, Planning Department Secretary Audrey Aspholm made the motion to approve the minutes from the September 11 th, 2017 meeting. This was seconded by John Lombardi. Motion approved VII. New Business A. Public Hearing An application, MDP 16-03 Premier Industries, LLC, for a Major Development Permit, submitted by Premier Industries, LLC, to install a slag processing facility, including a main plant, warehouse, maintenance shop, office building, and associated roads, rail lines, parking facilities, and raw material storage and processing areas. Staff Report Chas Ariss, Planning Director Chas Ariss reviewed the staff report that he wrote and gave a brief account in this report as to what transpired on the project from the County permitting standpoint. He did not review any of the work on the project prior to him starting with the County in April of 2017. His involvement was to have been initially briefed on this when he first started with the County, and Rick Tabish was present and various technical aspects of the project were discussed, that were only disclosable through completing a non-disclosure agreement, which Chas completed on June 27 th, 2017. He received a generic process statement regarding the process on October 4 th, 2017. An ADP was submitted to the county which was approved on December 30 th, 2016. The relevance to the package that we are seeing today is that on August 4 th, 2017, the County received a major development permit application from Sarah Jones, who is the lead consultant for this
project. This was reviewed and various comments were provided to Sarah through an e- mail, which is in the packet. These were addressed by Sarah and the information is provided in the packet. Having gone through the MDP application, Chas finds this in general conformance with the requirements of approval for an MDP and with conditions, he would recommend to the board to recommend to the county commissioners that thief MDP be approved at this point in time. Questions/Comments from the Board Audrey Aspholm asked how many conditions there were. Chas stated that he had not articulated these as he wanted to speak to the board about that first. Primarily, the requirements would be to require final plans and specifications for the project as well as to obtain a schedule and copies of any of the permit applications that are required outside of the county requirement which would include primarily the air quality permit and then subsequent to that would be the multisector industrial storm water permit to operate the facility. There are also water and sewer line extension approves that would be required from DEQ as part of this. The main lines have been ran out there, but the connections to the structures that are being necessary for the project would be required as well, and the last permitting from the county would be the building permits. John Lombardi asked for clarification on the MDP. He is just verifying that the air quality portion has not been completed, and wants to know how they will be permitted based on the calculated values of what the process will yield as this is running. As Chas understands this, there is another consulting firm, Bison Engineering, that is doing some emission evaluation of the technology and preparing an air quality permit application for DEQ. Another questions posed by John was that once the industry is up and running, is there some sort of required monitoring report that is provided to the state or the county. Chas stated that this is typically yes and should be stipulated in the permit application and there will be ongoing monitoring, however he is not sure if this will be continuous emission monitoring or not, but definitely an annual report would be required to be submitted. John Lombardi stated that a lot of folks within the community are concerned about this and says that we need to be very upfront about this. Chas states that this is actually beyond the scope of this particular review and recommendation. Chas intent is for the applicant to provide copies of their permit applications to the county so the county can look at this conjunctively with DEQ and see if we have any issues and make that available to the public to the extent that it is disclosable under the confidentiality status. Frank Fitzpatrick feels that there are a lot of things lacking in this proposal. Frank asked Chas if this is considered a complete application. Chas states that if you look at his staff report, he has gone through basically through Section 24-7 of the municipal code and while not entirely complete, for a MDP application, this does authorized the facility to move to the next step which is to essentially obtain building permits from the county. At the county level, we are still not able to permit the facility to operate. They still have to go through the environmental permitting aspect of this, so from a procedural and timing standpoint, there is substantial activity going on within the ground and so based on that, Chas does not see any basis to not recommend proceeding with this provided that we do get conditions on the final steps of this process with obtaining final plan specifications and the things articulated earlier. Frank verified that in order to make this complete, we would need to put those conditions on this and Chas stated that this is correct. Frank states that it would be nice to have more data available before anything is approved by the planning board. Again, Chas would recommend approval
with conditions. Frank asked what permits are lacking. Chas states that the environmental permitting that is required through MDEQ and that information has not been submitted to the agency or the county. There has also not been a building permit application. Frank also asked about the retention pond and is there an agreement with ARCO yet. They are working on this, but this has only been verbally and nothing in writing according to Sarah Jones. When the calculations are received, they will get certification from BP that the pond can be used and there is the capacity. Chas states that this would also be included in the conditions. The county will review that the overall storm water features are adequate for the project. The DEQ through the EPA clean water act has the authority to issue that permit coverage Frank asked about the two approaches. Sarah Jones explained that the approaches have been permitted through the state and is currently being permitted through the county as well. Frank also has concerns about the types of chemical will be used out at the site or during the process. Rick Tabish explained that all chemicals are dry and that the only import would be coal. There will not be any chemicals and as far as the emissions end of this, there will be no smoke stack, everything will go through a bag house There has been a test done and at this point no arsenic or anything is released. Frank is concerned about first responders showing up on site and not knowing what is going on what they are dealing with. Sarah explained that RJ Tocher, Fire Chief, will definitely get a chance to tour the facility and make sure that there is a plan in place and know what is in the facility. Audrey asked if the last few paragraphs on page 2 of the staff report covers Chas recommendations. This is as stated: Overall, the MDP application for this project appears to be generally complete, however, additional information including final plans and specifications (supervisory/design engineer stamped/signed) for proposed structures and other infrastructure to be built on the site (and accompanying building plans), landscaping and lighting detail, clarification about the highway approaches to be employed at this facility (there are currently two entry points to the site, however the approach permit addresses only one), and other items identified in my August 15, 2017 review email needs to be submitted. It is recommended that the Board recommend APPROVAL of this MDP with conditions that additional information be provide to the County as soon as it becomes available. Additional conditions include, but are not limited to, provision of a timeline to the County on when environmental permitting will be submitted, e.g., multi-sector general storm water permitting for industrial operations, air quality permitting (i.e. industrial process operating), potable water and municipal sewer extension approvals, as well as final plans and specifications relevant to this stage of the project. Questions/Comments from the Public Pete Smith knows what he reads in the paper, the first time said there would be 700 jobs, another article last week said 240, and another time stated there would be 40 or 50. He states that they are all over the map regarding jobs. Pete wants to know if they are going to be held accountable for the jobs. The response on this question was not able to be discerned, but basically stated that the different shifts explains the discrepancy for the job numbers. Again, part of this audio was missing.
Audrey Aspholm verified that the questions regarding air water and water quality will be addressed by the state before anything becomes final. She also verified that if an issue comes up, we could say no to the approval. Once the air quality permit is released this will go out for public comment. Public Hearing Closed Motion is made by John Lombardi that the Planning Board accept the staff conclusions listed on Page #2 of the staff report providing approvals dependent upon the conditions that are stated on Page #2. The Planning Board would recommend that the Commission approve this Major Development Permit. This is seconded by Vince Labbe. Motion passed. All in attendance were for passing this motion, one opposed, being Frank Fitzpatrick. B. Smelter Road Subdivision This is on the agenda this evening as informational only. This project is basically just redevelopment of idle county property that sits along the south side of Smelter Road. This is once you get into the old entrance gate of the facility. The county has had a number of business approach and are looking for land primarily with either the interest of either relocating their business here into ADLC and/or address possible code issues or to enhance the assets of their operation. What we have prepared is just a preliminary plat that just shows a general layout of what the county is looking to subdivide this property with and they have received proposals from several entities. One is Big Sky Storage with 1.6 acres, Mungas Construction would like to occupy the 4.88 acre spot. They would like to move their operation from Granite County to ADLC. The existing Search and Rescue has a lot but there will be a buffer put around that in case they want to expand their operation. A&A Technical Services is interested in moving their vehicles to a fenced area. They are interested in two lots, one for the towing operation and one will be for staging the vehicles for repair. Sawyer Plumbing is interested in obtaining a lot for storage of his equipment and stock of pies that he uses on projects. This leaves them with only one lot left that would need to be spoken for. Comments/Questions from the Public Jim Davison stated that he thinks we needed to do this for the last ten years. We have heard about contractors needing the space and he commends the county on opening up these areas and looking for further areas. C. Cottages at the Old Works Golf Course There was a very preliminary discussion with the Cavanaughs and did not have a formal proposal in front of us. In recent discussion with them trying to figure out how we may make that project work, they provided the packet attached. At this point, there is a planned urban development with a zoning change in this area. There is a preliminary plat and this is a mixture of county land, privately owned land, and land that is currently under ownership by ALDC. This going through a land exchange process. From the county standpoint, this is very similar to what we are doing on the Smelter Road property and then there will be a private land sale. There is a storm sewer there and the county is looking for the best way to route domestic water and municipal sewer to this facility. They will reroute the current pedestrian trail that currently goes along the road frontage and along the edge of the repairing area along the creek. They are also looking at
enhancing one of the access points to the creek for fishing. Trying to make this a community asset. They did receive a basic permit application from them, but the county is waiting for additional questions to be answered and waiting for additional information. Comments/Questions from the Public Frank asked about paved trails. Chas states that this is one of the bits of information we are waiting to hear back on, but he believes it will be paved as well as handicapped access. Rank also asked about plowing and Chas states that they will maintain the plowing of this area. Frank also asked that if when this becomes more evolved, they could do a walk-through as a committee, as this seems to be a pretty tight area. D. Growth Policy Update Economic Development Element Chas states that this all needs to be consolidated and that it is Bob Horne that is spearheading this update. Chas would like everyone to really scrub through this information as this is received. Chas would like to get comments on these. As above Local Services Establishment of Growth Policy Update Work Session Date and Time Audrey feels that this would be best on a regular night and time when there is not much scheduled. VIII. Miscellaneous A. Matters from the Board: B. Matters from the Staff: None IX: Public Comment: None X. Adjournment: Next meeting will be Monday, November 13 th, 2017. Motion made by Annette Smith to adjourn, seconded by John Lombardi. Motion carried. Respectfully submitted, Carlye Hansen Carlye Hansen Planning Department Secretary