A proposed waste transfer center in south Bloomington is on an indefinite hiatus following an Illinois Pollution Board [IPB] ruling.
The five-member board tasked with reviewing local government decisions on where to locate pollution sites — waste processing, disposal or storage centers — sided with disposal giant Republic Services earlier this month when it ruled that Chicago-based Lakeshore Recycling Systems [LRS] failed to give required notice to nearby property owners.
LRS submitted an application to McLean County in August 2023, seeking site approval for a 12,000-square-foot waste transfer center on 3 acres of near the Henson Recycling campus, which LRS already owns.
Following a series of public hearings, the McLean County Board in February granted conditional location approval to LRS for the proposed center, which LRS argued would meet a growing demand for waste-removal services and break up a near-monopoly it said Republic Services maintains as the owner of the only waste transfer center in the county.
Attorneys for Republic Services were fixtures at the hearings and, because they had participated during those hearings as an "interested party," were legally able to appeal the county board's decision to the state.
In the Oct. 3 decision, the IPB said Lakeshore had failed to notify the owners of the Hilltop Mobile Home community nearby, one of several criteria the company had to meet in order to be granted approval to build the center.
The legal back-and-forth between LRS and Republic disputed the distance between certain property and the proposed development and argued various points about parcel determination, with the IPB ultimately determining that the mobile home community's property owners had to be notified 14 days before LRS submitted its application to the county government — and were not.
The IPB's decision vacates the McLean County Board's approving vote; LRS has 35 days from Oct. 3 to decide whether it will challenge the order in the Illinois Appellate Court.
LRS did not respond to a request for comment.
In justifying its application, LRS argued during public hearings that there is a 200-ton shortfall of waste that needs, but is not, processed for transfer out of the county each day. The proposed center could process up to 400 tons of municipal waste each day, LRS said.
The center received mixed reactions in the community, ranging from 33 letters of support from local government and business leaders to 165 signatures, largely from area residents, on a petition against the proposed location near the mobile home community.
