The Moline City Council on Tuesday, Aug. 22, approved locating a $15 million nonhazardous waste material transfer station in an empty Moline TIF district on land the city leases from the Quad Cities International Airport (QCIA). The unanimous vote came after area residents – many wearing red T-shirts that said “No LRS Transfer Station” – […]
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The Moline City Council on Tuesday, Aug. 22, approved locating a $15 million nonhazardous waste material transfer station in an empty Moline TIF district on land the city leases from the Quad Cities International Airport (QCIA).The unanimous vote came after area residents – many wearing red T-shirts that said “No LRS Transfer Station” – spoke against the 5,000-square-foot, self-contained staging and recycling center being proposed by Lakeshore Recycling Systems. The proposed site is west of Group O on 10 acres located at 47th Street and 78th Avenue. The lengthy siting process for the Moline transfer station and recycling center now moves to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the Illinois Pollution Control Board. Those regulatory bodies will determine whether LRS can go ahead with its proposed state-of-the-art station, Moline City Administrator Bob Vitas told the QCBJ.
Opponents speak out
Project opponents who spoke Tuesday night shared concerns including increased traffic and wear and tear on Indian Bluff Road, 78th Avenue and Case Creek Bridge; potential flooding; odor; and unsightly trash. Greg Carter, general manager of Republic Services, a longtime Quad Cities solid waste disposal provider, also spoke in opposition to the LRS site application. He called the document “insufficient” and the transfer station itself not necessary to accommodate the waste generated in the area.As proof, he and other opponents pointed to an April 26 decision by the Rock Island County Waste Management Agency board to recommend against the facility because the county already has 100 years of landfill capacity with three landfills located in a 15-mile radius of the proposed transfer station.Gregg Ontiveros, CEO and owner of Group O, the industrial park’s oldest and largest tenant, also urged aldermen to reject the Moline location Tuesday. “Think hard who you’re getting in business with and why you’re getting in business,” Mr. Ontiveros warned the city. He said that when an LRS representative first went to talk to Group O about the transfer station he “flat-out told me that ‘you guys have been here a long time.’ He said ‘If you oppose this thing, we’ll pack our bags and leave.’”The Group O leader also raised concerns that LRS’ parent company is a private equity firm that “will sell this facility,” and when the representatives who make promises now are gone, tenants and the city will be left to deal with the results.
Airport backs plan
Benjamin Leischner, executive director of the QCIA, said Tuesday that a top concern at the airport is public safety so he was skeptical of the suitability of the nearby LRS site on the property the QCIA has owned since 1974. (The airport leases the land to the city on which the facility would be located.)“When this project was first announced we were very opposed,” Mr. Leischner told aldermen. But as “we started to look at what it was we started to look at it as actually good for the community,” he added.The Rock Island County Metropolitan Airport Authority did its homework, and Mr. Leischner said his due diligence included visits to other sites. He soon became convinced that the proposed Moline facility, “is not a detriment to the neighborhood. It is not a detriment to the tenants in the industrial facility.” Instead, he said, it will be good for the community and the region.Before they voted Tuesday, council members also pointed to the lengthy and detailed process the city has navigated to get to this point. It included public hearings, including an evidentiary hearing, where they said a wealth of evidence was presented that showed there was a need for the transit station, and that its addition will benefit the city and the entire Quad Cities community.
Mayor backs competition
Moline Mayor Sangeetha Rayapati, before calling for a vote on the siting, added, “From the very beginning when we first started this process, I believed in this project because it would limit monopolies which impact rates for customers.” She said the new facility also will help decrease costs in the Quad Cities and create revenue for the city “in a place that has not seen development since the TIF was created.”The LRS facility also will add 31 permanent jobs and the company said it will be responsible for its share of the costs for maintaining the roads its trucks will use, council proponents said.Then there are the environmental advantages.“Ultimately, we’re looking at ways to reduce the amount of trash that we generate in the first place by eliminating plastic” and other recyclables, said Alderman Pat O’Brien.“In the long term, we need to follow companies like Deere and Arconic that basically have cut their waste in half or pretty close to it,” he added. “That’s the goal and I think having a more efficient way to dispose of garbage and recyclables is the way to go. It’s good for not only the City of Moline; it will be good for the entire area.”
