Chris Zeiss

MAKING OR BREAKING WASTE FACILITY SITING SUCCESSES WITH A SITING FRAMEWORK

Waste facility siting successes depend on many linked factors of facility design and impacts, site characteristics, and community beliefs and values. A facility siting framework is constructed to combine important elements and cause-effect linkages that affect the siting outcome. The framework consists of three main components: (1) core elements of facility design, effects, and community beliefs, attitude and response; (2) contributing factors of site and community characteristics, community beliefs and values that affect the interpretation of the facility and its effects; and (3) siting management interventions to manage the process and facility impacts. The framework is applied in an unsuccessful and a successful siting case to determine the key elements that contribute to siting outcome: (1) thorough need justification for the facility from the proponent’s and the community’s perspective; (2) careful facility design and prediction of the impacts and to select impact management compensation measures; (3) screening and selection of communities where the beliefs and values are compatible with the type of facility and its effects, (4) cooperatively selected impact reduction (i.e., prevention, control, and mitigation) measures followed by compensation and incentives; and (5) intensive process management to balance the community characteristics and values with the proponent’s efforts to plan, design, assess and manage impacts, and ultimately, gain approval of the facility. The siting framework provides a comprehensive and robust structure of key factors that contribute to siting outcome and, therefore, provides the tool to identify, evaluate, and design siting interventions to enhance the chances of successful siting outcome.

Developing host community siting packages for waste facilities

Abstract Many types of benefits are conceivable as measures to offset waste facility impacts in a host community. Some may be ineffective or even detrimental to facility acceptance. It is in the best interest of the host community as well as the facility proponent to select and negotiate the most effective measures for a siting package. Properly sequenced, effective measures reduce time and effort required to negotiate agreements, and they may reduce the value of required siting measures. This article derives key principles and elements of siting packages: (1) need identification, (2) technical and site optimality, (3) waste stream control, (4) impact reduction management, (5) benefits, compensation, incentives, and (6) process management are shown to be important elements for siting waste facilities. An analysis of reported siting cases, however, shows that need justification, technology and site choice, and waste stream controls are infrequently used, whereas compensation benefits are often used in conjunction with process management and impact reduction. The article concludes that creative use of need identification, technology selection, and waste stream control may improve siting agreement success, shorten the negotiation process, and result in less costly agreements.

A case study of nuisance impact screening for municipal waste landfill planning

Abstract Nuisance impacts from waste facilities can aggravate community resistance because odor, noise and visual impacts trigger more serious concerns about impacts on community health, image and property values (1). In order to assess nuisances, initial site selection processes for municipal landfills should use screening models to determine potential nuisance impact zones. Predicted impact zones could provide a basis to plan buffer zones and mitigation efforts. This research work identifies simple screening models and required data to predict air quality, odors, noise and visual impacts. The predicted results are compared with measured values for odors, noise and visual impacts at a landfill that exhibits typical characteristics of the landfills in Western Canada, Washington and Oregon. The results show that simple predictive methods fairly accurately describe the facilitys nuisance footprint. Landfill gas migration and dispersion affect odors up to 500 m downwind and may serve as indicators for poten...

Management Principles for Negotiating Waste Facility Siting Agreements

Initial failure to site a small hazardous waste transfer station focussed attention on the need for a siting approach to overcome community resistance to negotiating siting agreements. A community study program was structured utilizing key principles of community decision making to justify need, to allow for community value judgments of gains, losses and fairness, and to encourage community adaptation to change by providing community control and choice. By translating these principles into specific actions, community awareness and responsibility were fostered and resulted in a consensus to negotiate with transfer station proponents in over 70 percent of the fourteen participating communities. The successful communities represented the entire range of size, income, education levels, type and ownership of homes. Participants stated that the key factors that contributed to their success in reaching consensus were the recognition of need, choice of options and of management measures to minimize impacts, econo...

Impact screening of solid waste management facilities with stepmatrix-reverse network method

Abstract The need for approving agencies to consider landfills, transfer stations, composting operations, and material recovery facilities with many different health, nuisance, economic, social, and environmental impacts requires a simple method to early identify and screen impacts and compare them with the need and the benefits of the facility. This research paper derives and presents a method to (1) identify needs and benefits, (2) systematically consider all possible cause-effect interactions and pathways from the facility operation to impacts in a series of matrices combined to a stepmatrix, and (3) summarize in a reverse network diagram potentially significance pathways and impacts to identify possible mitigation measures and options. From this, structured terms of reference for detailed environmental impact and risk assessment studies can be developed. The stepmatrix-reverse network method was pilot tested with four cases studies of a landfill, a biomedical incinerator, a rail tie shredding and landfill operation, and a transfer station. The stepmatrix method identified more possible interactions and more need/benefit items than ad hoc or detailed risk assessment methods. Furthermore, stepmatrix results derived by two different sets of analysts were more consistent than those from the other methods. Also, the stepmatrix was easy to learn and use by novice analysts. Finally, the comprehension of the results by members of the public was good. Most respondents could discuss their concerns in the context of the stepmatrix, and a majority felt they preferred the stepmatrix method over other methods. The stepmatrix-reverse network method has good potential as a simple tool to focus attention and effort on important issues. This method can easily be expanded into a decision-analysis and decision-making tool.