County panel sets conditions for DuPage Township composting operation
By Cindy Wojdyla Cain ccain@stmedianetwork.com October 9, 2012 3:12PM
Updated: November 11, 2012 6:19AM
For years, the Land and Lakes Development Co. has been operating a composting facility, a construction debris landfill and an asphalt/concrete plant in DuPage Township without being in compliance with county zoning laws.
After several years of discussions, including a period of time when the site’s owners considered annexing into the village of Romeoville, the business is close to finally coming into compliance.
Three special-use permits and one map amendment were approved by the county board’s land use committee on Tuesday.
The zoning changes will now go to the full county board for approval Oct. 18.
Twenty-eight conditions were placed on the permits.
One condition requires annual groundwater tests to make sure the wells of nearby homes and businesses are not contaminated. Another condition requires the company to create an odor management plan. Neighbors have complained that the site smells.
“As you are driving into Romeoville, this is not how you want to be welcomed,” Romeoville resident Tomasz Suliga said at a previous committee meeting. “I don’t want people to remember Romeoville for how it smells.”
Kelby Briddick, another Land and Lakes neighbor, said Tuesday that the odor from the composting site was drifting over to Veterans Woods forest preserve district.
One final tweak of the conditions shrunk the potential composting site from 46 acres to 32 acres.
Steve Bauer, an attorney representing Land and Lakes and JMC Operations Inc., lobbied for keeping the composting site larger.
He said the list of conditions is “bullet proof.”
But county board member Ann Dralle, R-Lemont, asked committee members to eliminate a 16-acre parcel designated for expansion in case odor control or other issues crop up at the larger 32-acre parcel.
Committee member John Argoudelis, R-Plainfield, was in favor of approving the larger composting site.
“I think we’re starting to micromanage things, and I don’t think that’s our job,” he said.
Committee member Sharon May, D-Minooka, disagreed.
“We’re micromanaging on behalf of the people,” she said.
