Longmont City Council is offering to help Boulder County commissioners find a location for a county-owned composting plant in hopes of sidestepping the type of controversy that led to the county dropping a proposal to place the facility at the abandoned Rainbow Nursery parcel.
Council members at their Tuesday meeting will consider sending a letter from Mayor Brian Bagley pledging support for a composting plant. The letter includes language that alludes to the Rainbow Nursery plan, which drew fire from residents and two lawsuits from property owners near the 40-acre lot on North 107th Street south of Longmont.
“On behalf of the City Council, I urge the County to continue its efforts to identify a suitable local site of a composting facility,” the letter states. “Longmont offers its support and would be more than happy to discuss the project moving forward including possible locations.”
City council earlier this month considered sending a letter supporting the idea of a composting plant to commissioners but Councilman Tim Waters said the letter should ask commissioners to collaborate with municipalities before deciding where to put the facility, which did not happen in the case of the Rainbow Nursery proposal.
Waters told council the siting of the compost plant emerged from county staff and did not involve bringing any municipalities into the discussion.
County planners have withdrawn a development application for the composting plant at the Rainbow Nursery parcel, and county commissioners last week said the site will no longer be considered as a location for such a facility.
Property owners next to the Rainbow Nursery site filed two separate lawsuits targeting the construction of a composting plant. They claim the county set aside the Rainbow parcel to preserve it as conservation easement and then violated the public trust by buying the land from a private owner using taxpayer-approved sales and use taxes to build an industrial compost plant.
One of the lawsuits was rejected Monday by Boulder District Judge Patrick Butler. Butler ruled, in part, that since Boulder County withdrew its plans to build the composting plant at the site, the plaintiffs could not show they were injured. The plaintiffs have said they will appeal.
The second lawsuit is still pending.
The letter from city council states that nearly 100,000 tons per year of organic material from Boulder County is sent to a landfill and the materials collected for composting are hauled to Keenesburg in Weld County.
“Both of those practices contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emission,” the letter states. “A publicly owned and operated facility could be a game-changer for the county and its municipal partners.”
