A second lawsuit filed against Boulder County over its placement of a composting plant at the former Rainbow Nursery site south of Longmont has been dismissed by a Boulder District judge.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, filed in February, by Jeffrey and Nancy Davis, are not able to show they have suffered a “sufficient injury” by the placing of the composting facility next to their horse farm, especially since the county has quashed plans to build the plant at the site, Judge Bruce Langer wrote in his decision this week.
A separate lawsuit, filed in December, by Lisa Battan, Brandon White and Victor Vargas also targeting the siting of the composting at 5762 North 107th St, was tossed by District Judge Patrick Butler on March 22.
Nancy Davis said, today, she was disappointed by Langer’s decision but not necessarily surprised that her legal attempt at forcing accountability over the location of the composting facility was booted.
“It just becomes clearer and clearer that Boulder County does what it wants,” Davis said. “There is just no accountability.”
County spokesperson, Barb Halpin, said when the Boulder County Commissioners decided in March that the former Rainbow Tree Nursery was not the right location for the composting plant, the county felt that the lawsuits opposed to using that site for a compost facility were moot.
“In both cases, the court determined that litigation over something that is no longer being planned was a not a good use of judicial resources,” Halpin said. “The county’s hope is that we can move forward in finding composting solutions that are compatible with the community and still get us closer to our Zero Waste goals.”
The county commissioners decided on March 4 to withdraw a special land use review application to build an industrial-scale composting plant at the Rainbow site to collect more community input on the project.
The lawsuits claimed the 40-acre Rainbow Nursery site should still be protected by a Boulder County conservation easement, which restricts development. The county paid $169,625 for the conservation easement in 1994 and then paid $985,000 to buy the Rainbow property from its owner in 2018, erasing the requirements of the conservation easement, the lawsuits claim.
The county announced plans to build the composting plant at the 40-acre Rainbow parcel in 2020. The Davises claim the plant would degrade the environment at their property, Langer wrote.
Langer said in his decision, however, that the the Davises “have failed to allege specifically how the merger of the Conservation Easement will negatively impact the land, soil, and water resources of the property … the plaintiffs’ allegations are premised on a speculative future event, and do not support a finding of injury in fact.”
Nancy Davis said she is unlikely to appeal, as she is exhausted by her legal fight with the county. “This just proves you can’t fight Boulder County,” Davis said.
