Ordinance approved
Ordinance approved
Nuclear waste still not allowed in N.D.
By MICHAEL JOHNSON
BHG News Service
The fear of the unknown brought a crowd of more than 50 local residents to hear what the McLean County Planning and Zoning board was proposing to do with waste in the county.
While the fear was that the board was trying to allow waste in the county, nuclear and the like, the opposite seemed to be true.
“What’s being proposed here is really nothing more than some local control,” States Attorney Ladd Erickson said of a proposed ordinance used to give the planning and zoning board control of where waste must go.
The increase in oil field waste is apparent. And what the county plans to do with it as it begins adding up is something most everyone seems concerned about. Recent newspaper articles have led many to believe that the plan was to start burying waste close to home.
The proposed amendment to a 1982 ordinance includes adding subsections on crew housing, waste disposal and regulation on recreational vehicle usage. The waste disposal addition is basically a shortened version of other current ordinances in other states. It also pulls from about 30 different similar ordinances, though Erickson said it is one of the first in the state that really gives a county enough control to say yes or no to proposals for waste disposal sites.
“The easiest thing to do is to do what other counties are doing, and that’s nothing,” Erickson said.
