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Home My WebLink About700367.tiff BEFORE THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS WELD COUNTY, COLORADO Hearing on the Approval of the ) Sewage Treatment Facilities, Site VII ) oh the following described property: ) That part of the SWI of Section 5 and ) the SEµ of Section 6, Township 5 North, ) REPORTER' S TRANSCRIPT Range 64 West of the 6th P.M. , Weld ) County, Colorado, lying South of the ) Ogilvy Ditch and North of the Platte River, ) containing 186 acres, more or less. ) APPEARANCES MR. B. H. CRUCE, City Manager, City of Greeley, Colorado, On behalf of the Petitioner, City of Greeley, Colorado. MR. SAMUEL S. TELEP, Attorney at Law, Greeley, Colorado, On behalf of the Board of County Commissioners as County Attorney. MR. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS, Attorney at Law, Ault, Colorado, On behalf of a group of Protestants. Pursuant to Notice published in the Greeley Booster, hearing on the above Request was held in the District Court Division III courtroom, Weld County Courthouse, Greeley, Colorado, on Wednesday, June 3, 1970, at the hour of 3:00, p.m. , before the Board of County Commissioners, GLENN K. BILLINGS, Chairman, and HAROLD W. ANDERSON and MARSHALL H. ANDERSON, Members of the Board. 700367 ^t t17Jn9 Wednesday Afternoon June 3, 1970 CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Request for Approval of Sewage Treatment Facilities, Site Number 7, by the City of Greeley, Weld County, Colorado. Record of hearing before the Board of County Commissioners, Weld County, Colorado, June 3rd, 1970, 3:00, p.m. At this time we would like the record to show that this cause came on regularly to be heard by the Board of County Commissioners of the County of Weld, State of Colorado at the hour of 3:00, p.m. , June 3rd, 1970, as provided in the Notice of Hearing that was duly published. Let the record show that this hearing concerns the petition of the City of Greeley for the installation of a sewage treatment facility, known as Site Number 7, in the rural area about five and one-half miles east of Greeley, Colorado; and more particularly described as being in the Southwest one-quarter of Section 5 and the Southeast one-quarter of Section 6, Township 5 North, Range 64 West of the 6th P. M. , Weld County, Colorado, lying South of the Ogilvy Ditch and North of the Platte River and containing 186 acres, more or less. There is no provision under the Weld County zoning regulations for a public hearing in a matter such as this. The City of Greeley has a property right, if the property is owned by the City of Greeley or under option to purchase by the City, subject to the approval of the Board only as to -2- location. Such a sewage facility as proposed by the City of Greeley is permissible, and the agriculture zone in this area that was just described in which the City of Greeley proposes to put this sewage facility has been zoned agriculture. Now the Board feels in as much as the matter has received much publicity, it is in the best interests of Weld County and the people of Weld County and the City of Greeley that this hearing be held before the Board makes a decision, even though the zoning resolution does not require such a hearing. Let the record further show that the County Planning Commission, this morning at a regularly scheduled Board meeting, has recommended favorably as to the location on which the City of Greeley proposes to build its sewage treatment facility; that this recommendation is only a recommendation, is not binding to this Board. Petitioner, the City of Greeley, in the opinion of this Board, has an established right, a property right, subject to the approval of the Board only as to location under our zoning resolution. Let the record further show that the Board of County Commissioners has been asked to continue this hearing, and it was read in the newspapers that it would be asked to continue this hearing. We are not about to continue this hearing any longer, and if there are any requests or motions made here today to continue this hearing, the same shall be denied. It -3- is the feeling of this Board that no good purpose will be served by continuance in this matter. For the record, I would like to state that the hearing has been published as mentioned and everyone hopefully has been given an opportunity to be present at this hearing and to be heard. There is no precedent for this hearing as I mentioned a while ago, and there is no provision for it under our zoning resolution. We are here simply because we feel it was in the best interests of the City of Greeley and Weld County and because we felt that the question was important enough to have a public hearing before a decision was made. We would like to announce at this time that we have provided a court reporter, and that anyone giving testimony will be sworn and may be subject to cross-examination. Now that we are ready to begin the hearing, if the spokesman for the Petitioner and other interested parties are ready, I would like for them to please come forward and we will set up a few ground rules before we start so that we will not have confusion later. After both the City of Greeley and those opposing this site have given their testimony, then we will allow any of the individuals within this group or any who come later who wish to make a personal statement as to their feeling about the location of this sewage disposal site to be heard, we will, because of your great interest, limit your time to two or three minutes. The Commissioners here will have a stop watch -4- and we will allow everyone to be heard as long as there are those who want to be heard. It is the feeling of this Board that if the statements of the people become repetitious that it would be a waste of your time and ours to continue past such time as we got into a point where statements were repetitious. At this time we will start off with the City of Greeley and we will let them present their proposal for the location of Site 7. B. H. CRUCE: Mr. Chairman, I 'm B. H. Cruce, City Manager of the City of Greeley, and on behalf of the City of Greeley we are bringing you this presentation. Since you mentioned you would want to swear in the persons who are before you, I would say that myself, Mr. Jim Wells and Mr. John Haley will be the spokesmen for the City of Greeley. And would you want us to be sworn in? CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Yes, sir. We' ll swear them in as they appear. (B. H. Cruce was sworn. ) B. H. CRUCE: As I said, I 'm B. H. Cruce, the City Manager of the City of Greeley. This is what is known as Site 7 of the sewage treatment facilities for the City of Greeley and its environs. We have prepared for the Commission factual information which we believe will point out why we need this particular site. And in order to conserve your time, I will not try to go into any brief outline of this. I would much -5- prefer that Mr. John Haley, who has been working with us on this and is the engineer for the Task Force that was appointed by the Mayor, that he will present the exhibits showing the region and the City of Greeley needs, and then Mr. Wells, who also has a contract with the City of Greeley for design of sewage treatment facilities,will also follow Mr. Haley with additional facts. And with this very brief presentation, which I think is sufficient because by letter you have all the information concerning Greeley ' s request, I will call on Mr. John Haley as our first spokesman. Would you like to swear in Mr. Haley. (John Haley and Jim Wells were sworn. ) JOHN HALEY: Mr. Chairman, I don ' t know whether it makes any difference with the format of the proceedings, but I will be assisted by my partner Vern Nelson only to the extent that he will be displaying the exhibits, pointing out certain items of interest and things of that nature. Do you want him sworn in and made a part of the record? CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: That won' t be necessary. JOHN HALEY: Mr. Chairman, I am John L. Haley and a member of the special Task Force appointed by the Mayor for the City of Greeley that studied and made recommendations on the sewage treatment alternatives made available to this problem. Now the Task Force consists of the Greeley Planning Commission, several business and civic representatives, both -6- from in the City and in the County, members of the County Planning Commission, Chamber of Commerce representatives and representatives from the Greeley Area Business and Industrial Development Foundation. Now assisting the Task Force in their study but not participating in their conclusions or recommendations were representatives of Monfort of Colorado, representatives of the Weld County Health Department, the Colorado Department of Public Health, representatives of the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration in Kansas City and attorneys from the City and from Monfort of Colorado. In addition of course Mr. James Wells, whom you will hear from today, is an engineer and is an expert on treatment of packing house wastes, and his consultation was also included in the deliberations of the Task Force. The Task Force published a report and I think the County Commissioners have been furnished copies of this. I know the County Planning Commission has been furnished copies, and for the benefit of the audience, someone who may not have been aware of this, copies of this are available for anyone who is interested in the studies, conclusions and recommendations of the Task Force. We recognize that the County Commissioners have made an extended study of the proposed treatment process and have thoroughly acquainted themselves with the stie to the proposed -7- improvements. Therefore, we do not feel that it is necessary to spend a lot of time acquainting the Commissioners with the facts involved in this hearing. However, because the opponents to the project have circulated petitions and have made state- ments in the Greeley Tribune and in private and public meetings that in our opinion are not based on facts, we feel that it is important that a clear statement of facts be made a part of the record. Now the citizens of Weld County and many of the people here today have been asked to sign petitions against this project by persons who are either uninformed or have chosen to misrepresent the facts for reasons of their own. Now we have with us today several maps and exhibits, most of which were prepared for other studies, some of which were prepared for this hearing alone, but all of which are factual displays pertinent to the hearing. And with your permission we would like to show you and the people here some of the exhibits which illustrate why the Task Force arrived at its conclusions and more specifically why the City Council has decided upon this specific solution and the specific site in question. Now I will present those exhibits that deal with the need for the facility, the history leading to this hearing, the legal and financial considerations that are pertinent, the planning considerations and the requirements of the local, state and Federal health and pollution control agencies. -8- I will leave the technical and operational consid- erations for Mr. Jim Wells to explain after my presentation. Now the first exhibit I ' ll call your attention to, and I apologize for the inability for this exhibit to be seen very clearly in the back of the room, I ' ll simply have to tell the audience what it is, but I think if the Commissioners will look at Exhibit Number 1, it is a large aerial photograph, and it ' s a very current aerial photograph, showing all of Greeley and most of the area involved in our discussion here today. Now for the benefit of the Commissioners, I think you will find when you get into questions or discussions of various locations of facilities, they can be identified on this photograph by close scrutiny. In the center, so that everyone in the back can see, in the center of the picture is Greeley. All of that area right there is Greeley. To the north is the Monfort Feedlots. The Monfort Packing house is right in there. And the Cache La Poudre River, and if you will trace that so they can see. To the west is the high ground between the two rivers where the majority of the residential development is occurring at the present time. Now to the south there are Evans and LaSalle. That ' s Evans and there is LaSalle. The existing Hill-n-Park lagoon can be seen on the photograph. The Evans Lagoon, the LaSalle lagoons. On the extreme east is the Weld County Municipal Airport, the confluence of the two rivers. You might -9- point that out, it 's very important, the Platte and right there is the confluence of the two rivers. Now for those of you out east, the Anderson Turkey Farm is in the lower right-hand corner, and the Webster Feedlots are right on the extreme edge and immediately below that and slightly to the east is Site Number 7. Now this exhibit, as I say, is a very recent photo- graph or a composite of many recent photographs. It is not an exact scale mosaic, but it is certainly adequate, Mr. Chair- man, I think for anyone to scale off or to make reference to in the course of these proceedings. Vern, would you put up Exhibit Number 2, please. Exhibit Number 2, while they ' re putting it up, is recently developed, and as yet this is the first public showing of this map. This is a large scale topographic map of the same area that ' s shown on the photograph, upon which has been superimposed the most recent comprehensive plan for the future development of Greeley and the sourrounding area. Now this map reflects what the Greeley is expected to look like when its population reaches 300,000. You will note that the development area includes all of the high ground between the two rivers, and the green strips are the two rivers. The development area is principally all in the high ground between the two rivers. It extends from the Delta, the area known as the Delta on the east, the yellow part is where the anticipated -10- development will occur. It extends from there clear west to Sheep Draw. Sheep Draw takes off from the Poudre; that ' s it. This map was prepared for the City Planning Commission under their comprehensive planning program. Without getting into a lot of the details, there is many significant things located on there: The zoning of industrial sites, residential, school locations, open spaces, parks, things of this nature. I don ' t think that this is pertinent to get into the details of this map, but it is presented here to show the anticipated con- figuration of the City of Greeley when it has developed in future years. Would you put up Exhibit Number 3, please. Now Exhibit Number 3 is a map of Weld County and it ' s just for informational purposes. It shows the location and type of sewage treatment facilities that are presently in service throughout all of Weld County. Now the orange circles, and those of you who can see, I ' ll tell you where they are, Greeley, Windsor, Eaton, and Milliken all have orange circles -- or the one at Windsor has an orange circle with some blue in it. The orange circles indicate the location of mechanical treatment facilities. The brown circles indicate areas where there are no treatment facilities, no formal treatment facilities. These are municipal areas or settled areas where there are no formal treatment facilities. The blue circles indicate where there are lagoon treatment type facilities. You will note that -11- there are 23 existing sewage treatment facilities in Weld County as of today, 19 of which areca]]ed lagoons, lagoon type treatment facilities. Nineteen out of twenty-three. I would like to point out that at the Windsor site, they presently have what we would call a mechanical treatment facility, but plans are presently under way, applications have been made for Federal funds. And in conjunction with the development of the Windsor area, it is anticipated that this mechanical plant will be abandoned and a lagoon type facility will be constructed. May I have Exhibit Number 4, please. I presume, Mr. Chairman, you want me to proceed right on through rather than -- CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Yes. JOHN HALEY: Exhibit Number 4 is a large scale topo- graphic map showing all the alternate sites that were studied by the Task Force, including Site 7. Mr. Wells, who was then working with Monfort of Colorado, made a study of Sites Number 1, 2 and 3, indicated in red. These were sites that were under the control of Monfort of Colorado and Mr. Wells was of necessity confined in his studies to that land that was under control of the company he was working for. A report made by Mr. Wells, a report was made by Mr. Wells and it too is available for the benefit of those who may have interest, this green-covered report. It was published before the Task -12- Force was created, and it is the basis for the approach the Task Force used in making their study. Mr. Wells ' report describes not only the physical sites but the method of treat- ment and a plan for constructionfor each of the sites 1, 2 and 3. Now Sites 4, 5 and 6, in blue, were studied by the Task Force which was not limited to a particular type of properties. These sites reflect a study of all the feasible sites, taking into consideration local, state and Federal standards. What I mean is the Task Force looked at a large area and they settled on these three sites as being typical of the sites that could be used that would meet all the Federal, local and state standards. Recently, Secretary of Interior Walter J. Rickel announced some new rules for evaluating the local needs for municipal waste water construction grants. According to the Secretary, one of the more important of these new concepts requires that proposed treatment works be included in a basin- wide plan or a metropolitan or regional plan for pollution abetement, and they must be operated to achieve efficiency, economy and effectiveness. Approval of waste water treatment facilities can -- and I ' m quoting the Secretary of the Interior -- can be made only through conformance to a basin-wide plan. Approval is further required for obtaining any Federal grants. Therefore, as the Task Force saw it, to qualify as a new public -13- sewage system for Federal participation, the site had to be large enough and had to be so situated that it would comply with all regional planning concepts. This is one of the fundamental principles that the Task Force accepted before it undertook its study. Now every effort was made to select sites which would not be in major conflict with existing land uses. For example, Site 4 was next to the public airport, across the street from a pig farm and just east of a feedlot. Site 5 was in the most isolated location we could find, separated from other properties by the two rivers. Site 6 was fairly isolated, being below the ridge on the south and boardered by the river on the north. It was the Task Force opinion that these three sites did not conflict materially with the land uses that are in existence today. Now Site 4 was chosen first and was recommended to the City Council primarily because of sewage temperature considerations. To be efficient the sewage from a packing house must be delivered to the site at a high temperature. According to our original calculations, the sewage could be pumped only as far as Site 4 without excessive temperature losses. In addition -- and several considerations were made -- but in addition, this site had numerous construction advantages that would enable it to be constructed at less cost than the other sites. Now several public hearings were held with regard to -14- Site 4. During those public hearings, there was a considerable objection raised on the part of the people from Delta, the Delta area, the people between the two rivers. Now after the Task Force report was published, we were able to obtain a written guarantee from the pipe manu- facturer that a new highly insulated pipe could be furnished that would enable the sewage to be pumped 31,000 feet, approximately six miles, without undue heat loss. Because of this and the objections of the Delta citizens, the City Council decided that they should go to Site 6. Site 6 was then given several public hearings and was the object of a considerable protest on the part of the citi- zens of Kersey. The Weld County Planning Commission held a hearing and subsequently voiced opposition to Site 6 for technical reasons relating primarily to the river flood plain, concern over the needed river crossing and the fact that the facility was on Kersey ' s side of the river. The City Council accepted the Planning Commission ' s report and decided to seek another technically more satisfactory site. This led to the selection of Site 7 which, although it is more costly from a development standpoint, it is one that meets all the technical objections voiced by the Planning Commission, and is across the river from Kersey. This is the Site we are considering here today. Site 7 is on the south side of the highway and above -15- the river. It is below the confluence of the two rivers and thus meets all the requirements of regional planning. The Site is capable of being served by a pumped pipeline from Monfort ' s Packing plant, using public rights-of-way. And the blue line on the exhibit shows the proposed allignment of a pipeline from the plant to the treatment site. As a regional treat- ment site, it can also be served by gravity lines from the existing Greeley plant and the anticipated outfall lines along both rivers. The Site is well above the river and thus is not involved in any flood plain, The soil, although no soil tests have been taken because we have not been provided access to the site, the soil is apparently quite adequate for the proposed construction. There is no evidence of a water table problem at this Site, and the effluent from the Site can be placed either in the Ogilvy Ditch for irrigation purposes or directly into the river after treatment. Vern, if you will put up Exhibit Number 5. Exhibit Number 5 is again a very large scale topo- graphic map upon which we have colored in some areas which show how Site 7 could be used as a regional sewage treatment site when the area has developed to the point that the existing sewage treatment facilities at Hill-n-Park -- and point these out -- there is one at Hill-n-Park, LaSalle, Evans, Kersey, Eaton and, although Eaton is not on the map, their effluent comes right down Eaton Draw, and Greeley, are overloaded. -16- Now when these facilities become overloaded and abandoned, Site 7 can come into play in accordance with the schematic diagram we have of the pipelines serving Site 7. Now this is an expansion of the other plan that you saw of just the Greeley area. It shows anticipated developments outside of the Greeley area that would accompany Greeleyrs growth. You will note considerable development is antici- pated in the areas of Seeley Lake on the north, Lucerne, LaSalle on the south, and Kersey. Now the planners envision a very large development on the high ground south of Kersey now that they have soft water, gas and sewer service. This, according to the planners, development will go up the hills and of course utilities have to be provided before development can occur. Kersey has its basic network of utilities. You will note from this and the other exhibits that the total area of Site 7 is in excess of 150 acres, and I recall from the reading of the legal description that it was 180 plus acres. The initial construction proposed for the first stage requires approximately 50 acres, leaving 100 plus acres for future construction as needed by the expanded domestic sewage systems. Mr. Wells will discuss the construction, operation and maintenance of the first construction program; that is, the facilities of treating the packing house waste. But before we get into this technical discussion, on -17- behalf of the Task Force, I ' d like to point out several very important facts pertaining to this site, Site 7. First, the site is immediately adjacent to a large feedlot operation whose odors are presently existing. Second, the site is two and a half miles from Gill as the crow flies and two and a half miles and across the river from Kersey as the crow flies. Further, the site is so located that the effluent can be put into the Ogilvy Ditch, should there be any controversey about the use as irrigation water, or it can be put into the South Platte River, both of which are immediately adjacent to the property. Now according to the published reports in the Tribune, the opponents to this project say, and I quote: "The thing we are really fighting is that Greeley really shouldn ' t have a lagoon. It ' s going back to pre-historic times when it does this. " Well, if this is really what the opponents are con- cerned about, I think we can eliminate a lot of this concern by referring to some publications which are official publi- cations and which I have with me today. I first refer -- and this is not an official publi- cation but the documents it refers to are -- I first refer you to Reader's Digest, the article dated July, 1960, entitled "Nature' s Wonderous Way With Waste" . And I have a reprint of that here with me should you need it for the record. The article deals with sewage treatment lagoons. It points out that lagoons are in fact, and I quote: "A recent discovery of one -18- of nature' s oldest wonders -- a method of purifying sewage that is simple, safe and inexpensive. " Continuing the quote: "With our modern technology, says one public health official, 'we tend to think we can purify sewage only with costly and complicated mechanical instal- lations. The fact is, nature can do an excellent job on every- thing except certain kinds of synthetic industrial wastes. '" It continues on: "This natural phenomenon was stumbled upon largely by accident in 1928 when the Town of Fessenden, North Dakota, installed a new sewer system. Unable to raise additional funds for a mechanized sewage treatment plant, the town began to pour its sewage into a hastily dug basin at the edge of town. A couple of months later, town officials and state inspectors were astounded to find that the sewage had mysteriously achieved a higher degree of purification than could have been produced by a conventional mechanized plant. "Not until 1951, however -- when Glen J. Hopkins, U. S. Public Health Service Regional Engineer for seven Mid- western states, made a careful study of the North Dakota ponds -- did the pond movement begin to gain national momentum. " This hardly sounds like pre-historic times, 1951, now that was just 20 years ago that the ponds started gathering national momentum. I continue the quote: "Since 1957, the Federal government, along with its aid for other approved types of -19- municipal sewage plants has been offering up to 30 per cent of the construction cost of an approved pond, " -- and incidentally it has now been increased -- "with a maximum grant of $250,000 per pond. But the pond at Grand Forks, North Dakota, for example, " -- and this refers to the size of ponds and what they can do -- "will service 40,000 people. And four ponds in Auckland, New Zealand, can service a total of 381,000. " All of that was from an article in the Reader ' s Digest, dated July, 1960. However, we have some more authori- tative reports, one of which is a report prepared by James A. Horn, Associate Public Health Engineer, Colorado Department of Public Health, dated August, 1965, and entitled "Evaluation of Waste Stabilization Ponds located in Colorado. " Under the heading of conclusions -- and I will not try to refer to any- thing else, although I have copies of the report here if someone has need for it, but just referring to the conclusions, are listed the following statements: "1. None of the lagoons which comply fully with our design standards had seasonal or year round odor problems. "2. Isolation requirements should not be more stringent for lagoons than for other types of sewage treatment plants. " Conclusion Number 4: "A properly designed lagoon accomplishes a reduction in coliform organisms which is -20- adequate for compliance with our standards, and comparable with chlorination of a mechanical plant effluent. " "7. Public health problems such as disease trans- mission and mosquito breeding have not been experienced in properly designed, constructed, and maintained lagoons. " Conclusion Number 9: "The operation and mainte- nance cost of a lagoon facility is only about 40 per cent of that for a comparable mechanical plant. " And the last conclusion: "10. Due to the extremely long retention time provided, lagoons will much more readily absorb shock loadings from industrial wastes. " That ' s the end of the quotation. These are quo- tations from an official publication of the Colorado Department of Health, authored by Mr. Horn. Now we have many other authoritative publications which recite the many advantages of lagoons as a means of treating domestic and industrial sewage. All of the publi- cations admit that although it ' s a relatively new method of treatment, there is no question about its ability to do a good job with less cost, less maintenance, and less problems than are usually experienced with a mechanical plant. To conclude my part of the presentation, I would like to remind the Commissioners and the people that are here that this whole effort is to remove an intolerable burden from hundreds of people in East Greeley and the entire Delta -21- area. There is no question but there is a foul odor coming from the mechanical plant presently located in Greeley. There is no question that this odor is affecting and directly affecting the people of East Greeley and the people in the Delta. There is still no question that the odor is a direct result of overloading of the present plant. Now the City has spent thousands of dollars trying to relieve this situation and it ' s prepared to spend enough more to insure the complete elimination of odor from the mechanical plant presently located in Greeley. However, the only way this can be done is by removing the excessive load from the existing plant. Now Monfort sewage is the basic cause of the over- load. When this is removed from the plant, the existing facilities will take care of the City ' s domestic load, at least until the City grows considerably more. Until new facilities are provided for some of this load, the people in the vicinity of the existing plant can expect no relief. When the proposed facilities are completed and the load is reduced in town, the odor from this plant will be eliminated. I will remind all of those present that Greeley is legally obligated to accept all the sewage from all its citizens, and that includes Monfort. It can only accept it and charge for treating the sewage. It cannot suddenly decide not to accept Monfort ' s sewage and just dump it into the river. -22- Because Monfort ' s is a high temperature, specialized sewage, it places an unusually heavy burden on the existing plant, causing it to be overloaded to the point it creates odors. However, because of these special characteristics, the Monfort effluent can be separated from the domestic sewage and be given a special treatment that is more efficient than can be done in the mechanical plant. This process promises to eliminate the odors from the existing plant and to treat all sewage to a higher standard and without creating new odor problems or increasing the tax burden on any citizen. It ' s a practical solution, based upon sound studies and utilizing proven methods that promise excellent treatment with a minimum of odor at a reduced operating cost . Wherever it is located, the method designed by Mr. Wells is the one that should be followed if we ' re going to solve our present problem and, at the same time, provide facilities and a site that will serve the entire region in years to come. No one on the Task Force is pretending that the location of a new sewage treatment site isn ' t going to grieve someone. Just the word "sewage" itself is offensive to a lot of people. However, the problem must be solved and the desig- nation of Site 7 as a site for the regional sewage treatment facilities offers by far the greatest number of advantages to the greatest number of people while imposing the minimum amount of conflict with existing land uses. -23- Thank you, gentlemen. I ' d like to turn this over now, if I may, to Mr. Wells. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: Might I ask -- CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: You may ask some questions of Mr. Haley at this time. CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: Q Mr. Haley, had you considered any recycling; has the City Task Force considered any further cooperation with Monfort in reducing the load of their BOD load into the present sewer facilities? A I am really not the man that question should be directed to, but I ' ll give you a quick answer and then later you can get elaboration from Mr. Wells possibly. The Monfort Company, Monfort of Colorado, and the City of Greeley have entered into a contract where the sewage charges will be based upon them taking care of the maintenance, operation costs and all of these factors. In other words, the Monfort Company pays these costs. It ' s a private enterprise operation. They have already taken numerous steps to remove fats and bloods and manure and all the other by-products of a slaughterhouse and con- vert them to some other uses. They will continue this program, it is our understanding they will definitely -24- continue this program. They will upgrade it considerably when they go into their expanded operation. The details of this, however, I would rather leave to someone else. Q Let me ask you what happened to Site Number 1 and Site Number 2, why they were dropped? A Site Number 1 and Site Number 2 were the sites that were to be constructed by Monfort if he had to go it alone, so to speak. They were immediately adjacent to the City of Greeley; the Island Grove part on the Site Number 1, and Site Number 2 was up on an area which, as you can tell from our development plans, was subject to considerable expansion. Mr. Monfort advised, and I ' m sure it ' s his plan, that this area will some day not be a feedlot operation, but go into some other expansion. The Task Force did not feel it was at all prudent to try to put a new sewage facility right in the town when obviously good planning dictated that it be located further downstream and out of the area of potential growth. Q Now you say out of the area of potential growth. Is that the reason that the site of the present sewage treatment facility of the City of Greeley cannot be expanded because you anticipate that the growth will increase around the City of Greeley ' s present sewage treatment facility? A This is certainly one of the reasons. I wouldn ' t say it was the only one. And I won ' t even say that the present --25- sewage facilities cannot be expanded. I don' t really know if they have enough land. I ' m not prepared to comment on that. Q Your Task Force was to make recommendations and it seems to me that they should have at least considered what might be done with the present facility. A They very definitely did, to what could be done -- your question is what could be done with the present facility. The Task Force definitely did study the plant and did study the condition of the facilities there, the loadings and so forth. And if you had read or you would read the Task Force report, you would find comments to the effect that a major repair is required o❑ what we call the old plant, and that with the anticipated growth of Greeley, the new plant, or the one on the north side of the river, can be anticipated, once Monfort ' s sewage is taken out, can be depended upon to handle the present City ' s loading. However, the old plant is over 15 years old, it is terribly in need of repair and it is our conclusions, as the Task Force, that any further use of this plant is going to call for major expenditures to keep it in service. Q Well now, is there any, you said that the pipeline transmitting this sewage 31,000 feet east, that you had a written guarantee from the pipe manufacturer that it would carry it and maintain it in such temperatures so -26- that the effluent could be treated in lagoons; is that correct? A That ' s correct. Q And I represent a group of citizens, interested citizens, east of Greeley who are opposed to sewage lagoon-type treatment, because they feel that they might give off offensive odors, that they are not sightly and they are not a multi-use facility for fishing, swimming or any- thing else. And it seems as though, as we move from Site 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, we just keep moving further and further east. Now is pumping involved in moving this sewage further and further east? A Pumping is involved in moving and treating Monfort ' s sewage regardless of what -- where it was built. Well, even there it was involved. Site 3 wouldn ' t have near as much pumping, but some pumping was involved even in Site 3. All of the sites under consideration involve pumping of Monfort ' s sewage. All of the sites under consideration involve gravity flow down the river basins to a point where they would be lifted into a sewage treatment facility. Now before anyone gets concerned about this, this is a normal operation. If we got a mechanical plant, you ' re pumping it, so this is nothing; after we got it collected you expect to pump it. Now I hope I ' ve answered your question. -27- Q Let me ask you this then. If you are pumping all the way down and everything, and I didn ' t have the benefit of reading your Task Force report, could you tell the people here what reasons exactly you gave for not expanding the present mechanical plant, rather than taking land out of agricultural use? A First, and again I ' ll let Mr. Wells expand on this, but first this specialized sewage, it was coming from the packing house, it ' s a hot waste, it ' s delivered in the condition that just plays havoc with any mechanical plant. It causes a septic condition to generate it in the line between the plant and the sewage treatment plant. We believe and as I say Mr. Wells is the expert, we believe that there was no efficient way in which you could continue to treat Monfort ' s sewage in the mechanical plant at present or, for that matter, it ' s my opinion there is no efficient way you can treat it in a mechanical plant similar to the one we have in Greeley. This was a prime consideration. The second consideration was this new plant is only five years old. It ' s a million dollar plant. It was built to take care of the then anticipated growth problems. But obviously Greeley is in the midst of a terribly fast and expanding economy. We ' re growing. We don ' t even know how fast we really are growing and to try to spend money on a site, continue to spend money on -28- a site which was at a location that we know would be inadequate and improper from the standpoint of good planning did not seem feasible to us, so we abandoned that idea entirely. Q Well now, I notice on your last exhibit, I believe it ' s Exhibit 5, you show no growth area around the proposed site. Are you aware of any residential areas or develop- ments anywhere in and around this proposed site 7? A You mean subdivision-type developments? Q Right. Yes. A There may be some, but we do most of them at our office and I ' m not aware of any major subdivision processes, unless you start talking about in the area of Kersey or those that are within this yellowed-out section. Q Well now, no, I 'm talking right around the red lagoon area. And I was wondering, you said you were not aware. What future effect will this lagoo❑ have, or this site have, on the development of that area, if it were pro- posed and you didn ' t know about it? A I ' m not an expert on development from the standpoint of economics. I could recite, and as I did recite, what the State Health Department ' s conclusions were, what the Public Health Department ' s conclusions were. These facili- ties if properly constructed and maintained can be, and I quote the U. S. Public Health officials, "can be within -29- one hundred yards of churches, schools or residential areas without ill effects. " Q Go ahead. A I agree with this concept. Q If that is true, why couldn ' t that white area that shows on your map, being undeveloped, immediately adjacent to the present sewage treatment plant be used for this facility, just looking from -- A It ' s in the river bottoms. Q There is an ample amount of area there. A Vern, go back, I ' ve forgotten the number, the one that shows the development plan with the green belts. What ' s white on this exhibit is green on the other one, and these are in flood plains and green belt areas, and no develop- ment is anticipated in those areas. I think that will tend to answer your question. You see the green belt areas, as we call them, follow the irrigation ditches, follow the draws, and are, according to the planners ' concepts of things, areas that should not be allowed to develop in residential or business properties. As a consequence, according to the planners ' program, there would be no development in the green belt area. Now this has absolutely nothing to do with sewage. It has to do with flood plains. It has to do with the concepts of open space planning and that type of thing. -30- Q Well now tell me what the blue area is immediately north, I take it, of Monfort? A That is all in industrial zoning. Q Just the north part there? A The area right in there. That ' s light industry. Q Wasn ' t Site 2 immediately to the east of that or was it further down? A Site 2 is in that same area. Q And if these lagoons are unoffensive to residential areas or light industrial areas -- A Give me a name. Q Bob Burroughs. A Bob, I did not testify and I will not testify that these things are not offensive. Q You're citing examples. A I cited examples in the words of other authority that they were permissible and tolerated and they' re used in the vicinity of a lot of facilities, but, as I cited in my testimony or presentation, they are -- the word itself is offensive and I ' ll not argue that this is something that I would want right in my back yard. Q We appreciate that-- CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: If we don' t keep quiet and orderly here, we will clear the courtroom of this hearing so that we can proceed. -31- Q I appreciate that, Mr. Haley. But what I ' m getting at, and in the long way around, is you ' re moving a facility here five and a half miles east of the City of Greeley. Now you say you wouldn ' t want it and I 'm sure the citizens of Greeley would not want it either. Why was not or could you tell me what consideration was given to other methods of treatment that are unoffensive? Do you know of any that are unoffensive? A You are using the words I can ' t testify to. I don ' t know that there is any sewage that is unoffensive, and I believe what I am saying to you is the same thing you ' re saying to me in different words, that the word "sewage" is unoffensive. Now the reason it was put way out to the east is dictated by good planning concepts. Q Good planning for whom? A For the entire region, in accordance with the regulations of the state, local and Federal authorities. Q We would not argue that regional planning is needed here. But it seems that regional planning could carry it to the north. You have no planning to the north. And it ' s much closer. A Bob -- Q The point I ' m trying to make is it seems to me -- we recognize that Greeley has a problem and it has to be taken care of, but the people out on the plains feel -32- now as farmers and feeders they ' re required to put in their own septic tanks, they' re required to put in their own leach fields under the direction and control of the Health Department. They treat their sewage at home. And it seems to me that it ' s only reasonable that Greeley as a growth town -- we ' re not taking it from that, it ' s the County seat and a trade center for most of us -- but there should be some way to making this sewage treatment unoffensive and treated close to a source right at home. Now did your Task Force go into that? A This is a primary obligation of the Task Force, to remove an offense in the form of odor from a vast number of people, the citizens of Greeley and Weld County. So, yes, we did take it into consideration, and the answer we came up with was the answer which we believe offers the greatest advantage; in other words, the greatest protection to the greatest number of people, and admittedly imposes some -- pick your own word -- offensive neighbor to some people. Wherever the site is located this is going to happen. The purpose of the Task Force was to find the one location or the several locations where the regulations of the Federal government, the health people and all of these could be met with the least damage to the least number of people. Q Well now you have also cited the fact that if these lagoons -33- were properly operated and maintained, that if they would function properly and do a good job of treating sewage. Now is there any way that the people living in that area or the people thatmight have to live around one are given that guarantee? Now you said the City was given a guarantee on this pipeline. What if that guarantee goes bad and that sewage drops 20 degrees by the time it gets out there? A Bob, you know there is no wayI can stand here and guarantee for the City of Greeley to someone else some- thing. In the judgment of what I consider to be real authorities and top qualified professional designers, this proposed facility will do the job of treatment. It will eliminate the odors from the Greeley plant by removing the load and it will not create odors that can be detected in my personal opinion. Now I have to differentiate between the Task Force position and mine. In my opinion, the odors from this facility operated the way it ' s designed to be, according to Mr. Wells ' design , will not be detectable when compared with existing odors of the South Platte River, the feedlots and the other operations that are in there now. That ' s a personal opinion, not the Task Force. I can ' t speak for them. Collectively we recognize it to be an offensive problem to some people. MR. BURROUGHS: I have no further questions. Q Now you did tell us that all this system involves pumping. Why wouldn ' t this be regional then if you have got a pump anyway? A One is we' re pumping downhill. That ' s one point I 'm glad you brought it up. I want to point it out so we don' t misunderstand. Rightly or wrongly all sewage goes downhill. Any development concept that you propose for sewer, you will use gravity lines. Now you will collect it and have lift stations and you will pump sewage. I don ' t mean you have to keep going downhill. You can lift it up over hills and so forth. But any regional concept would have to be at the confluence of the two rivers in order to serve the entire region of the two rivers, because sewage goes downhill. Now to get back to your question about pumping, all of them would be pumped. Site 2 is up on top of Mumper Hill. It ' s not capable of being served by any gravity lines or anything of that nature, where Sites 3, 4, 5 and now 7 could be. Q I have one other question, too, about your transmission line running across that six miles. I understood one of the major objections to Site 6 was because it was on a flood plain. Has any consideration been given to flooding from such creeks as Lone Tree Creek and what it might do to this transmission line? -36- A Yes. I think you will see that when we show the exhibit that shows the layout on the site, there is no problem there. Q And Site 7 is entirely out of the -- A It ' s right up on top of the bank, so to speak. MR. BURROUGHS: I have nothing further. B. H. CRUCE: Mr. Chairman, I don ' t want to stop anything that needs to go on, but before Mr. Wells speaks I would like to call your attention to the fact that the City of Greeley is looking at a regional site for this waste water treatment for the next 50, 100 years, and although the people here are interested pri- marily in what we do in the next year, it is for this reason that we thought that Mr. Wells should show you what is involved. But, please, as he shows you this, do not assume that this is the final product. We are looking for a regional site for Greeley and definitely it will be the site for 50 to 100 years. And when we celebrate the bi-centennial this will be the site we' re talking about, I 'm quite sure. So I just wanted to bring this out because most of the conversations about this are, well, what are you going to do next year. MR. JAMES WELLS: I have an exhibit here that shows the site in a little more detail I think and would be appropriate to put up right now. -37- My name is W. James Wells, Jr. I 'm with the consulting firm of Bell, Galyardt & Wells of Omaha, Nebraska and Rapid City, South Dakota. Our firm has considerable experience in dealing with meat packing wastes in the last eight years, and we have been retained by the City of Greeley, Colorado, to develop a phase one of a waste treatment system that would be located at the site that we are discussing. It would seem to me appropriate at this time to go into perhaps some little detail concerning the proposed treatment method and why it was selected. As you will note on the site, over on the left-hand side, the first unit in the treatment system are known as anaerobic lagoons. They ' re the two large squares. The reason that this particular method of treatment was selected is primarily because the packing plant wastes themselves are rather high in temperature, they ' re concentration is quite high, and while this poses a disadvantage to most conventional treatment systems, it becomes an advantage when anaerobic lagoons are employed. Anaerobic lagoons involve the decomposition of the wastes through the use of bacteria that operate most efficiently in the neighborhood of 80 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. We would anticipate that these wastes will arrive at the treatment plant site at a temperature -38- somewhere between 85 and 90 degrees. These anaerobic lagoons have been employed by the industry in both industrial plants and joint municipal industrial plants over the last eight years, and their popularity has increased to the extent that approximately 60 per cent of the waste treatment systems developed for meat packing plants, be they industrial only or municipal and industrial, emply the use of anaerobic digestion as the first step in the treatment process. I have with me a publication dated January, 1970, put out by the U. S. Department of Interior, Federal Water Pollution Control Administration. It ' s entitled "Water Pollution Control Research Series" and the number SDAST-38. It ' s entitled "Projects of the Industrial Pollution Control Branch ' . And I ' d like to refer to a Federal deomonstration grant that has been awarded to Farmbest, Incorporated, of Denison, Iowa, for a waste treatment facility. The amount of this Federal grant is $289, 790. 00. The description of the project is as follows: This is a 15 month project to demonstrate over one full year of operation the application of anaerobic lagoons and two-stage trickling filters for the treat- ment of strong wastes resulting from the slaughtering and processing of hogs. This plant kills about 5, 000 hogs daily and waste flows average 0. 85 million gallons -39- a day. Data will be collected on the strength of the wastes and the efficiency of individual treatment units under various loading and weather conditions, so that the results can be projected for new plants using any combination of these treatment units. I further have a publication here from the U. S. Department of Interior, entitled "The Cost of Clean Water, Volume 3, Industrial Waste Profile Number 8, Meat Products" , in which they list the treatment plants that are both joint, municipal and industrial plants, and this publication shows that fully 60 per cent of the treatment plants employ anaerobic lagoons. Their treatment process is simple, easily operated and maintained and extremely effective in reducing the organic load anywhere from 70 to in excess of 90 per cent in that first stage alone. The second stage of the treatment processes employs an activated sludge process that is quite similar to the activated sludge process on the new waste treatment facility located on the north side of the river for Greeley. This is what ' s known as a completely mixed activated sludge system. It was developed and it ' s complete operation fully studied within the last seven years. The principles are well defined and its capa- bilities for large wastes are well known. It is -40- essentially an activated sludge plant of a type that is employed in many municipal treatment plants, particularly the ones more recently constructed. The Clarifiers that you see are a part of the activated sludge system. They settle out the solids from the activated sludge basins. A portion of these solids are returned back to the basins in order to develop a microbial mass that is sufficient to oxidize all the wastes that come from the anaerobic lagoons. The waste solids are returned back to the anaerobic lagoons where they are decomposed. Actually the complete treatment process thatyou see on the left side of the drawing is fully capable of providing treatment that will conform with the present water quality standards for the State of Colorado and would be capable of being discharged into the South Platte River. The lagoons that you see on the right- hand side that are identified as Polishing Lagoons are -- perhaps in more precise terms should be identified as tertiery treatment lagoons. I have with me a publication of the Water Pollution Control Federation, in which a study was made, and this is dated April, 1970, in which a study was made on tertiery waste stabilization ponds following the munici- pal treatment plant for the City of Ames, Iowa. This is a trickling filter plant and the purpose of the tertiery -41- stabilization ponds is to provide treatment that would take the overall efficiency of the plant from somewhere in the 93 per cent up to 99 per cent, so that the waste could actually be discharged into the Ogilvy Ditch and have a dissolved oxygen concentration and would be probably less than ten million grams per liter, as a final effluent. Now these waste stabilization ponds are really not classified as conventional lagoons for final polishing or what we call in the industry tertiery treatment. The title of this article is "Algal Periodicity and Waste Reclamation in a Stabliization Pond Ecosystem" , so it puts kind of a high-sounding name on it. But really a tertiery lagoon would be perhaps more a difinitive statement. I 'm bringing these points out to differentiate what we are proposing here from what perhaps you may be thinking of in terms of a conventional lagoon system. I don ' t intend to go into any further details as far as the exact size of the units and any further technical details unless there are questions. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Mr. Burroughs, do you have questions? MR. BURROUGHS: Yes. -42- CROSS-EXAMINATION BY ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: Q I believe you said you were involved with the selection of Sites 1, 2 and 3, or Mr. Haley said you were; is that correct? A I wouldn ' t say that I was -- Q Let me ask this: Would this treatment plant that you have designed up there fit on Sites 1, 2 or 3? A If you were to take the -- take just the treatment units that are blocked out, I believe they would fit on Site 2. I don ' t think they will fit on Site 1 anymore, because I believe that that sigt has been developed into a feed- lot pollution lagoon system, if -- I may not be correct. And I would doubt that there would be sufficient land for it anymore. Q Could the feedlot pollution system be operated into this? A No, sir; I don ' t believe that could be done, primarily because what you' re looking at there is treating actually a situation where you have runoff due to rain fall, and this amounts to a considerable rate of flow over a very short period of time, and the primary function is to settle out the heavier solids so that they can be removed after the rain fall and then the liquid portion would actually be stored and then would be pumped out. So it ' s not really what you would call a treatment system. It would -43- be more properly called a waste manual system. The answer to your question is no, it could not be incor- porated into this system. Q Site 2 would be sufficient but not Site 1 in size at this time? A Yes. The system that you are looking at there, where you consider just the blocked-out units, could fit on Site 2, yes. Q How about Site 3? A I don ' t know if there has been any further development at Site 3 since we last looked at it, but the answer to your question would be yes, it could also fit on Site 3. Q Now I believe that Mr. Cruce indicated that you were planning a system or a site to accommodate the City of Greeley and the region for a 50-year period. Is this the type treatment that would be used for -- A No. No. The primary reason for going into this type of treatment system is because it is particularly adapted to high strength, high temperature waste of very high, volatile sewage; that is, a very high percentage of it is subject to being decomposed. It is not suitable for domestic waste treatment and we would not employ this type of system for municipal developments. Q In other words, the municipal sewage would not be funneled into this sewage plant at all; is that correct? -44- A Well, I would say the use that we would make of what you see now in a future municipal system could be funneled into after the anaerobic lagoons; in other words, the aerated lagoons are actually designed as an aerobic system and domestic waste could be funneled in downstream from the anaerobic algoons. They could be. This of course -- what we may do would be to have an activated sludge system very similar to what is on the north site in addition to what is already there, so that the units would be parallel and perhaps the Polishing Lagoons would be utilized also to polish the effluent from the proposed municipal system. Q Now I may have missed it and maybe you did testify to this. Have you ever constructed a sewage treatment facility exactly like this? A Yes, we have. I would say probably at least eight or nine of them. Q So that they are exactly like this, so that this one is guaranteed to work, in other words, right from the beginning? A Yes. I would say we have a refinement here in order to accomplish a higher degree of treatment through the aerated lagoon portion. The two final clarifiers, their purpose really is to take the biological mass that ' s created in the aerated lagoons and allow that to be -45- returned back to the aerated lagoons to build up a con- centration, what we call mixed liquids or suspended solids so they have a higher capability of further reducing the waste. So it 's really a refinement over and above of what a conventional aearated lagoon will provide, which we would expect to achieve probably 85 or 90 per cent through these aerated lagoons. Whereas, without the ability to increase the suspended solids concentration, 60 to 70 per cent would probably be as high as you would expect. Q Now what BOD or load factors have you designed this plant for, what are the capabilities, in other words? A Thirty-three thousand pounds of BOD per day. Q I m not an engineer and I don ' t get these things quite as fast as you put them out, but there is 33, 000 pounds of BOD that comes in? A Yes, sir. Q And that is reduced to what, you will bear with me because I don ' t -- A We would expect that you would probably end up with about one per cent of that leaving the system. Q Leaving the system out of the -- A Final polishing. Q Ponds? A Right. Q Now I have one other question. Now this projection that -46- you gave me here in these past facilities you have built, do any of them carry a load such as 33, 000 pounds BOD coming in? A What we have actually is a -- if you were to take that, as you can see, there is duplicates of everything through the system. There are two anaerobic lagoons, two aearated, two clarifiers and two polishing lagoons. So what we have developed to date is essentially equivalent to one-half of that system. In other words, in the neighbor- hood of 15, 16, 17, 000 pounds of BOO per day. Q And that is what you have built so far? A Yes. Now we are currently under design for a treatment system very similar to this, except that it employs some- what of a different system where you see aerated lagoons and clarifiers for a plant of that same size. This would be 30 some thousand pounds. This is for Iowa Beef Packers in Dakota City, Nebraska, and it would also be that size. Q Now on this smaller plant, the one that ' s about half that size, does it come out on a 1 per cent figure on effluent leaving the lagoons or polishing ponds; has it performed that way? A Yes. The plant at Denison, which employs anaerobic lagoons and two stages of aerobic lagoons would come in at about a strength of about 15 or 16 hundred million grams per liter. This is a concentration. And the -50- effluent is in the range of 17 to 20 million grams per liter. So this would be in excess of 98 and a half per cent, or quite close to 99. But we would expect even a higher degree of treatment because of the clari- fiers and the activated sludge portion to the system. Q How much horsepower or how much electricity or power is required to operate this system, just the clarifiers? A Well, the clarifiers are quite small. They ' re only about half a horsepower actually. I believe it ' s 150 horse- power. I might be able to refine that in here. I 'm pretty sure that 's what it is. Yes, 150 horsepower. Q What maintenance is required or proposed, have you developed a plan of maintenance of this system? A One of the new requirements that was in the list of requirements that Mr. Haley referred to is one wherein the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration requires that a complete operational manual be developed as a part of the design of the system and this is prepared by the consulting enginner. That describes the theory and the operational requirements of each unit in the system, tells the operator exactly what he must do, and further provides that the consulting engineer will be involved in the start-up and the operation in the first, I believe, six or eight weeks of the treatment plant, so that the operators are trained and developed so that -51- they understand what it is they will be operating. So the answer to your question is, we have not of course done this yet, but it will be a part of the design and will be a part of the final design. Q If this were approved and required and so forth, what would be the construction time for this? A We developed a program wherein if we would have been able to start on April 1, we would have been completely done by January 10. So that if we now start, what, oh, say July 1, this is May, June, January, February, March, so you would be looking at I presume sometime in March. And of course this allows most of this time that we ' re talking about, not developing the plans or even con- structing the facility, but most of the time is involved in the approvals with the State of Colorado, the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration, these kinds of approvals that must be obtained. They said it ' s at least two and a half months before -- by the time we submit an application before the Federal Government would give a final answer on it, so a good share of this time is not design time but actually approval time. MR. BURROUGHS: I think I have no other questions. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: At this time we will declare a ten minute recess. (Recess taken. ) -52- CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: We' ll call this hearing back to order. B. H. CRUCE: Mr. Chairman, this completes the City ' s presentation to the Commission as far as the factual data is concerned. Since we have been talking about treating waste from the packing house, Mr. Monfort would like to say a word and of course I would like to reserve the right to have any rebuttal after the other side has presented its case. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: At this time then we will hear Mr. Monfort, if you would like to now. (Kenneth Monfort was sworn. ) KENNETH MONFORT: I ' m Kenneth Monfort. I think it fitting that I come in between the two groups since I ' m really not an advocate of either position. There are certain facts that are very clear to me and simple to us. I ' ll be very brief. First of all, sewage from our packing plant must be treated. I think this is the starting point that we all have to agree on. Whether the packing plant exists in Greeley may not be a preordained fact, but it does exist and the waste from the plant must be treated. This treatment must conform with all the water pollution laws that we have or that we can foresee. This involves not only strength of the waste that eventually gets to the -53- river but also involves such things that we didn ' t used to think about, as thermopollution, the temperature of the water, et cetera, as it flows back into the stream. The second thing is that we agree that it is the responsibility of the City of Greeley to provide us with a sewage facility to handle our sewage load. Our plant is within the City limits. We pay City taxes. And most of our employees live within Greeley and pay its taxes, although a number do live elsewhere. We do, however, agree with the City that their charges to us should pay for the cost of treating that sewage. Third, location of the facility is not important to us, except as it relates to the feasibility of treat- ment and the cost of that treatment. And the cost is important because it pertains to our ability to remain competitive in what is a highly competitive industry. As has been brought out here, we had originally proposed to build some facilities on our own nearer the plant. This was deemed not feasible. Secondly, when the study commission suggested an airport site, we agreed with that one. Thirdly, when it suggested a site across the river we agreed with that one. And, fourth, we agree with this one, which leads us into our fourth thing I ' d like to mention. And that ' s very simply that speed is our problem. As -54- you are well aware, we announced sometime ago that we were undergoing a rather large expansion at the packing plant and that part of this expansion demanded new sewage treatment facilities, not only for the added load but because of the fact that the present City plant is highly inadequate. If this proposition or anything dealing with the treating of our sewage is delayed much longer, it will delay greatly our expansion program. This is something that you gentlemen must weigh, your responsibility to us, to our present employees and to future employees. Those are sort of the factual things I would like to mention. I would like to make several comments and then if there are any questions I would be glad to try and answer them. The first comment is that the only successful treat- ment of packing plant sewage that I know about, and we ' ve traveled and looked at a great many places, is through the use of a lagoon-type system such as this. Secondly, that the odors resulting currently from the overloaded Greeley treatment plant are unacceptable to me, not necessarily as a user, but as a citizen of this communi- ty, and that something must be done about that. And, thirdly, that the site we ' re discussing today is adequate, although it is probably the highest cost installation for us to amortize over a period of years through users -55- fees of any that have been brought up. I think that ' s literally all I have to say, unless someone would like to ask a question. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Does anybody have any questions for either the City of Greeley or those opposing this lagoon site? KATHARINE McELROY: If I may pose a question. Mr. Monfort, you stated that the City of Greeley is obligated to take care of your sewage, your industrial wastes. Is it obligated to take care of your treatment of such -- pre-treatment of such industrial wastes? KENNETH MONFORT: No. KATHARINE McELROY: All right. That might leave something then to be considered, why it should be responsible for your industrial waste when it isn ' t responsible for your pre-treatment. I would ask also, you said you had studied all sorts of systems for the treatment of industrial wastes. Did you by any chance acquaint yourself with what happened in Sterling? KENNETH MONFORT: Yes. KATHARINE McELROY: What did you find out happened? KENNETH MONFORT: I found out that they had a problem and continue to have a problem. KATHARINE McELROY: Well now your information is quite -56- different from mine. After a hearing with the City Council at one time, the next day I called the City Manager at Sterling. I talked with him probably over a half hour. The information he gave me was this: There are a number of gentlemen down there who own feedlots, large feedlots. These gentlemen also own a packing plant. The Manager informed me that they had tried the lagoon system. It was not successful because the odor was bad. He informed me then that the solution to their problem was this: One, the men introduced an extensive remodeling of their pre-treatment of industrial waste at their packing plant and their rendering plant; two, they built a mechanical type sewer treatment plant in conjunction -- which is located within the city sewage complex, but they paid for it and I think it was over a million dollars that they paid for it. This is my information straight from the City Manager of Sterling. If you have other information, then I think we both better go down and talk to him in person. KENNETH MONFORT: My information is that their origi- nal plant that was built by the same engineer that built Greeley ' s sewage plant, a sector of the new phase of the Greeley plant, or designed it, was highly inadequate. They have added to it. They have remodeled it. The Sterling Packing Company, Meat Company, is paying for that plant in exactly the same method as we propose to pay for -57- this plant, that is over a user fee over a period of years. The owners of the plant and the management of the plant are not at this time satisfied with the results of the plant that they have and I 'm sure they never used lagoons. KATHARINE McELROY: Well, anyway, as I say, maybe we better both go see the City Manager and see who is telling the truth. Now why, why, do you object to paying for a mechanical treatment plant on your own property? KENNETH MONFORT: Because to the best of our knowledge a mechanical treatment plant would not be a satisfactory way of treating our sewage. And I am no expert, Kaye. KATHARINE McELROY: Well, we' ve got to get down to cases here, somebody' s got to be an expert because -- KENNETH MONFORT: I think Mr. Wells is the man. KATHARINE McELROY: I also contacted a friend of mine who is on the faculty at Ames College, in Ames, Iowa. Of course they have quite a meat industry in Iowa and they have packing plant problems. I was sent some lagoon studies and systems that were innaugurated by civil engineers at that College. I was sent information. No one in that group would say that lagoon systems were overtreated, and I think they were qualified people. Now I would suggest that rather than pressuring people -58- into making an immediate decision regarding your sewage and industrial waste that you spend a little more time looking into the mechanical treatment of waste, of indus- trial wastes, which guarantees from the information I have the removal of odor, and maybe we can have a church within a hundred feet of your sewage plant. Now there is one other thing. You are now building a lagoon facility out at the south end of your lot. In fact, you had one there; isn ' t that correct? KENNETH MONFORT: Not a lagoon system. It ' s a catch basin for runoff water. KATHARINE McELROY: It ' s a catch basin for liquid waste from the feedlot. KENNETH MONFORT: For water runoff. KATHARINE McELROY: Right; liquid wastes, KENNETH MONFORT: Not liquid wastes. Nothing runs off unless there is a lot of rain, KATHARINE McELROY: But it ' s liquid waste. This is what Kansas requires by law of every feet lot, isn ' t it? KENNETH MONFORT: Right. KATHARINE McELROY: Okay. Also at the north end of the far feedlot there is a lagoon system,similar, which catches the liquid waste from the far feedlot. This empties into the Ogilvy Ditch, people' s ditch, right? Well, you wouldn ' t know. -59- KENNETH MONFORT: I don ' t know. KATHARINE McELROY: This is an extremely vociferous system and it is an open waste treatment system. It gathers waste. So I would suggest that the premise that this problem be approached on both by Monfort Packing Company and the City of Greeley and the Commissioners of Greeley be, first of all, one, the elimination of odor which has not been the premise upon which any of this problem has been approached on; it ' s been a cost matter, and the cost to the people of Greeley of odors is incal- culable, I assure you. But at any rate, suppose they approach the problem from the standpoint of the elimi- nation of odor, no question about it. And we know that lagoons will emit odors. We know there are objectionable open sewage type things which no one wants to live by. And, two, that the Monfort Packing Company consider the treatment of its own industrial waste on its own property, just as it was suggested at the beginning, that you put an open lagoon system there, just put a conventional mechanical type treatment. And I would beg to differ with you that mechanical treatment of industrial waste, which is properly pre-treated, cannot be treated in a mechanical sewage system without odor. KENNETH MONFORT: Katharine, I have to admit that I do not know that there is absolutely no way to treat it -60- in a mechanical system. In many ways what we ' re talking about using here involves some mechanical system. One of the prime reasons why we got involved in this is because of the odor emitting from a mechanical plant now. KATHARINE McELROY: We know that the sewage has not been properly treated, Kenneth, and we know that it 's greatly overloaded. And I think if your 33, 000 pounds of BOD a day were put into your own system, properly pre-treated, I think you made a statement one time you would be damned if you would pre-treat your sewage so that it was just water when it came down the Greeley system. If this is a conclusion you made, perhaps you can pre-treat it until it will actually -- KENNETH MONFORT: I think the statement I made was why should I run it through the Greeley system when it was already pure enough. KATHARINE McELROY: Right. That would be fine, if you know a way to pre-treat it enough. KENNETH MONFORT: Any other questions? UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Mr. Monfort, I would like to ask you what temperature the water leaves the packing plant? KENNETH MONFORT: Everybody ' s asking me questions that I really don' t know. Could I ask Jim Wells, he ' s the one studying this. -61- CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: I think that here we ' re getting off and asking somebody technical questions who has got qualified people here to answer the technical questions, and they probably should be answered later. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Mr. Chairman, May I ask Mr. Wells this question? CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Yes. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Mr. Wells, what temperature does the water leave the packing plant? JAMES WELLS: The temperature varies, but the average temperature is about 97 degrees. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: And the guarantee they have on the pipeline would deliver 32, 000 feet downstream at what temperature? JAMES WELLS: About ten degrees temperature drop. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: I think at this time before we get into any more questions from the audience that we should allow counsel for those who are in objection to this plant to present their side of the case. Do you have anything else, Mr. Monfort? KENNETH MONFORT: Oh, no. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: Mr. Chairman, I have asked several questions here before, and as I have stated, I represent a group of very interested, earnest and sincere citizens who live in the area east of Greeley here. They -62- are interested in their environment not just for them- selves but for Weld County as a whole, including the City of Greeley and Monfort, Incorporated. It should be made clear that the remarks and testimony our committee wishes to present are not intended to be the personal affronts or affronts to the City of Greeley as a growth city or against the growth of Monfort of Colorado. Greeley is our County Seat. It ' s a trade center for all of us. And Monfort has, and I 'm sure will continue in the future to add to the prosperity of Weld County as a whole. It is our view that the entire County has a stake in the future expansion of industries and population centers as well as a stake in controlling what has been termed environmental violence. It is really only recently that we, the nation as a whole, have become concerned with the violence that is being done to our environment, specifically the pollution of our water, pollution of our air, the destruction of the natural resources and the resulting violence to our health and our aesthetic senses, our smell and our sight. This is the time to prevent violence to our environment that a sewage lagoon would do. We have imposed curbs and regulations upon our air and water pollution at their source, and we must not lose -63- sight of the fact that the closer we arrive at the source of the environmental violence the more concerned we become. A recent example is trashburning. Trashburning was stopped not at the city dump, it was stopped at the individual backyard. Another example which I made reference to earlier was the example of the farmers. Every farm- house in Weld County is required to put in a septic tank and leach field according to regulations. And there is now in existence, I believe Greeley has just passed a code, environmental code, in which it ' s a misdemeanor or some other crime to have any kind of a container of stagnant water within the city limits. Each of these examples and illustrations are aimed at preventing or curbing or in some way correcting what I have termed environmental violence. Now the environment of this County and this City of Greeley is not beyond repair. We should all be willing to look to the future and promote our environment to avoid the problems that have beset our eastern states. It ' s no wonder that our State is attractive to other individuals and other industry. We are not yet too beset with the problems that the eastern, west coast, southern and central states have. We recognize that there is an immediate problem with Greeley's sewage treatment facility as it presently -64- exists and for the immediate future, not only with Mon- fort ' s expansion but also the continuing growth of the City itself, And the City has now provided us with the information that they are planning a huge growth, and I think that we should be thinking in these terms rather than in crises terms. Our purpose in being here is to oppose a sewage lagoon at Site 7 based upon three considerations: The first, that Site 7 is not a feasible location for a sewage treatment plant because of the distance from the population center as it now exists; second, that sewage lagoons as a method of treating wastes for the growth towns of Weld County is not a practical or proper method for sewage treatment for the quantity and quality here contemplated and; third, that a cleanup and recycling at the packing plant plus a renovation of the existing system would obviate the need for a Site 7 at this time. Now we want to offer alternative solutions and we would like to present three expert witnesses, two of them engineers and one of them a researcher who will speak on the environmental aspects of sewage lagoons and our environ- ment generally. We also have petitions from nearly 1,000 area residents who are opposed to Site 7 as a lagoon site and are opposed to any site as a lagoon site. I would like to call as our first witness -65- Mr. Achziger, who is a resident of the area, and have him tell you how he feels about the lagoon site and to identify and introduce the petitions that he has circulated to the residents in the area. In the interest of time and saving room, maybe he could be sworn and speak from his chair. (Charles Achziger was sworn. ) ffHARLES ACHZIGER Called as a witness on behalf of the Protestants, being sworn, was examined and testified as follows: DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: Q Mr. Achziger, have you obtained certain petitions from various residents of the area east of Greeley, Colorado? A I have. Q And what do these petitions state? A That they are absolutely against lagoons. Q In the area east of Greeley? A In the area east of Greeley. Q Were you in charge of the circulation of these petitions? A Yes, I was. Q Do you have present people who can identify the area that surrounds the area? A I do. MR. BURROUGHS: In the interest of time, -66- Mr. Commissioner, unless there is a question about the admission of these, we won ' t call each person who carried the petitions around. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Ben, would you come up here. Do you have any objection to these petitions being presented into the record? In the interest of time he doesn ' t want to call everybody. MR. CRUCE: Oh, yes. I would have no objection. I have no idea what they are. Mr. Chairman, the heading of all these petitions seem to be the same, and I presume they have studied the map as to the site and I have no objection. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: On that condition they will be entered as evidence. Q (By Mr. Burroughs) Mr. Achziger, where do you live from the proposed Site 7? A Well, I 'm adjoining just to the east of Site 7. Q Did you cause to be taken certain pictures of the area adjacent to Site 7? A Yes. Q And who took these pictures? A Cross Studio. Q Do you have them with you? A No. He didn ' t have them quite finished. He might have them done now if you need them. I have some here but -- -67- UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: We do have pictures taken by their photographer but not the finished product. Q Mr. Achziger, I hand you this and ask if you can identify what that is? A Yes, I can. Q What is that? A That ' s from the school board of District 7. Q Was this mailed to you? A Correct, it was. (Protestant ' s Exhibits 1 and 2 were marked. ) MR. BURROUGHS: The purpose of these exhibits, Mr. Chairman, and Commissioners, is to show that people are against this lagoon in that area and there are a con- siderable number of signatures. We have got the letter of the Superintendent of the School Board. We' re here for minority rights in a sense, but we' re not a rabble- rousing or violent minority. We feel our concern for the environment actually is more akin to the voice of the silent majority. I said that we wanted to offer alternative solutions and that we would present expert witnesses, and when you hear from these witnesses I would like you to keep in mind that in dealing with an environmental violence, such as a lagoon could create and we feel would create, we feel that there are four primary considerations. The first is -68- the source of the pollution must be considered. And the second instance would be a desire to do something about it. And third we must make the best use of our ecological know-how and technological know-how. And the fourth problem to be handled of course comes back to ecomonics; it must be handled economically. We recognize that. Of particular interest in the specific question here today in the source of the pollution is the immediate concern, Monfort ' s Packing Plant. A second source is the present sewage treatment facility for the City of Greeley. A third source lies in the continued growth of the City of Greeley. And a fourth and maybe the largest potential source are those concentrations of population and industry upstream from the City of Greeley, up the Platte and up the Poudre and their various tributaries. The site under consideration today is the seventh site that has been considered. As near as we can tell, all have been of the lagoon type treatment, and they go up in number and further and further away from Greeley. I can' t say that we blame the citizens of Greeley really for wanting to get it moved out of Greeley. But it ' s our contention that it should be the responsibility of the concentration of the population to deal with their problem at the source, which is at home. Greeley has -69- the biggest concentration of population thus far in Weld County. But there are large concentrations of industry and population upstream. Now we ask and we think Greeley and Weld County should ask all the communities upstream from them to treat their pollutants at their source, and we wonder now how can the City of Greeley in good faith do this without setting a modern and progressive example of treating their sewage at their source, too. This is Greeley ' s centennial year and they should set the example and then try to get the concentrations upstream to do the same. It ' s the strange part of human ❑ature that the further away a problem may be the easier it is not to be concerned with it, that is unless it is upstream or upwind. We wonder, to give you an idea of the feelings, we wonder what the opposition might be if the proposed site were to be Glenmere. These areas are not multi-use areas. They are not good for anything else but sewage treatment and that ' s it. No one puts up picnic tables beside them. No one goes fishing or wading around them. The second consideration must be a desire to do something about our environment and this we all want to do and I think it ' s made most evident by the number of people, by the fact that the City Council, the County Planning Commission -70- and the County Commissioners have spent so much time in the past on land fills and dumps and other flood control, and it ' s evident by the time spent here in calling this out-of-precedent hearing on sewage treatment. The third point I wish to make is that if we desire to put an end to or at least control environmental violence, we must make use of our most modern technological and scientific developments and recommendation that there is such a thing as human ecology. And I would like to ask at this time that Cecil Osborne, engineer from the City of Fort Morgan, be sworn and express his views on the possible solutions to what has been termed a crisis. He has a solution that would meet a crisis, if in fact a crisis does exist. (Cecil J. Osborne was sworn. ) CECIL J. OSBORNE: My name is Cecil J. Osborne. I am of Fort Morgan, Colorado. I ' m a practicing civil engineer working in northeastern Colorado. I design and install water and sewer systems as a part of my general practice which includes irrigation works, diversion dams, et cetera, to qualify myself to make the statements hereafter. I will confine the specific experiences to sewage treatment works, which I have designed and were built under my direct supervision. Fort Morgan sewage plant, now undergoing expansion to accommodate an over -71- 1, 000 daily cattle kill from American Beef Company. The Brush sewage plant built to serve municipal Brush and Sigman Meat Company where at present some 1, 800 hogs daily are slaughtered. Sterling sewage plant designed and built by others, modified by myself at small expense and with a very large cooperative effort by Sterling Beef Company eliminated the odors and adequately clenasing the sewage. This is very remarkable in that a very bad odor problem was encountered with a 688 cattle kill. The odor was cleared on this kill. The kill now is 1,400 head daily. Pre- treatment at the slaughterhouse for the large kill now creates less of a problem than under the lesser kill. Log Lane, Colorado, which is a suburb, sewage lagoon. Peetz, Colorado, sewage lagoon. Wiggins, Colorado, extended aeration with an endless ditch, similar to Eaton, Colorado, now just ready to be put in operation. Since three installations have to do with the tremendous loads generated by large slaughter- houses I feel I can speak with some authority of what is required to adequately process the wastes and by now have opinions based upon basic logics and the relationship thereto to what actually does happen. I have been employed by a group of people that are opposed to a sewage lagoon in their living area to state -72- the facts as I see them and as it affects their position. A very short discussion is in order to state the function of a sewage treatment plant. It should be kept in mind that for ordinary organic wastes from homes, garbage disposals, slaughterhouses and all products of farm and feedlots the process is a simple one. The natural environment in which we live provided for the reduction of these wastes and recycled them into the ecology in an orderly manner before men could read or write. The introduction of chemical compounds will upset the order, and the abatement of chemical pollutions call for processes to fit the type of chemical and are a specialized field which in this brief discussion will be left out. Concentrations of people and centralized food pro- cessing plants will without sewage treatment create problems, the intensity of which is directly related to the degree of concentration and the volume of the food processing plants. Sewage treatment consists of sedimentation or the separation of those parts that are heavier than water in specific gravity to reduce the volume in order to practi- cally cook or ferment out the organic materials. The reduction of these particles can either be done by an intense oxidation of the mass with the help of mechanical -73- aerators or as most common they are introduced into a closed vessel where they are reduced to carbon dioxide methane gases and a relatively inert residue. Any leaks of these vessels will create offensive odors. All of the suspended organic materials that are a part of the water must be taken out by an aeration system of some kind. This aeration system can take the form of mechanical air blows, beaters or submerged vanes that will introduce enough air to the mass so that enough of the oxygen in the air will combine with the sewage to reduce it to a state that hopefully will approach the condition of the pristine source of water supply; trickling filters operate on the same principle, but are more resilient in that, due to the nature of the very large exposed surfaces of the rock and the squirrel or storing capability of the film which is home to the bacteria, that does the reducing of the sewage, provides a time element not possessed by the activated sludge system. The extended aeration systems do away with the sedimentation part and rely on an adequate oxygen supply to be present at all times so that enough is present to prevent the larger particles of organic material from becoming septic, giving off offensive odors, for the period of time to decompose. The microscopic particles are decomposed very quickly. The oxidation ditches and -74- sewage lagoons are of this type. The length of retention being determined by the available air, with the lagoons being very slow since the only source of air is from surface contact and that oxygen being given off by the growing algae in the lagoon. It is known just how much vessel space, how much energy, how much time is required to handle a sewage problem if the loading in terms of pollution and volume of sewage is known. It is also known the sequence of events that must take place so a routing can be set up. It is as simple as determing the number of standard sized apples in a barrel. Many claims are made by equipment manu- facturers and engineers that by the applications of dials and geegaws here and there that they will perform miracles. They are nice to add to for operation ease, but you can ' t haul a two-ton load on a half-ton truck. Sewage plants have a bad reputation, some earned and others speculated upon, since one ' s own wastes or excrements are like skeletons in the closet and individually are anonymous. Only in the case of large users of the sewage system can there be any fingerpointing; a slaughterhouse can certainly be pointed out and in time can become a whipping boy. There is just something about a sewage plant that most people would be in favor if installing them as far away as possible or as far as the next-door -75- neighbor. This solution has the advantage of being out of sight and, as a correlation, out of mind. Sewage plants can be built that are offensive odor free, and I underscore offensive odor. There is no process, even sawing wood, that does not have some odor connected with it. The reaction to people is of course different, so it is useless to argue offensive or non- offensive since there are no olfactory scales invented as yet that can be attached to an individual to ascer- tain his sincerity. The writer has some knowledge of the loading put upon the sewage disposal plant by the slaughterhouse. From the information that about 60 to 80 acres is pro- posed for the lagoon system, the question of adequacy of area is involved. In a free lagoon it would take at least one-half acre for each steer killed to do the job. Withthe proposal of approximately the equivalent of 2, 000 cattle kill daily, with the sheep added, the minimum size would have to be 1,000 acres in the simple form with distribution points to uniformly feed the entire area. With the addition of energy in the form of aerators the size can be reduced. Withe the addition of deep ponds and, provided a screen blanket can be developed that will prevent the escape and absorb the offensive odored gases, a further reduction in size can be had. -76- I would like to elaborate just a little bit on that particular point. The anaerobic lagoons as proposed here are nothing more than digesters as they have in the present city sewage plant. They are larger. They require the heat element to operate just the same as the digesters in the present city plant does. The present digesters in the City of Greeley have a floating cover which effectively should conceal the gases that are given off. I will point out at this time that all anaerobic digestion gives off offensive smelling gases. So the reason that these particular things will work, it has to be relied upon that a blanket of scum is built and kept continuously over the surface so that these gases cannot escape readily into the air. And then they will work and the odor surrounding them will be tolerable and can be lived with. All of these refinements carry and " if" . If there are no ifs, then there should be no objections from anyone to having the installation adjacent to the slaughterhouse. I am very firmly convinced that the solution to slaughter- house wastes is better housekeeping and the installation of effective waste removal at the slaughterhouse. I have seen almost miracles performed at this point. At Sterling I have personally seen a 10, 000 pound daily BOD loading with 20 part settleable solids, 550,000 gallons of water -77- used on a 688 daily kill out to 3, 500 pounds ROD daily, two parts settleable solids, 300,000 gallons of water used and a 1,400 daily kill. The installation is simple, but the right equipment, for the most part locally fabricated, in the right place. Some recycling of water is used from the clarifier primarily for the heat content to operate the screens. At Brush, Colorado, the contract with the City of Brush calls for penalties if the strengths are high in BOD. This clause gave the slaughterhouse an economic incentive to cut down the strength of sewage. They dramatically cut from 8, 000 pounds BOD, 25 parts settleable solids, 375,000 gallons of water, to 2, 500 pounds BOD, two parts settleable solids, 375, 000 gallons of water to qualify for the lowest rate on an 1, 800 daily hog kill. In both instances the settleable solids are being recycled into tankage. At Sterling, the portion of the recycled water from the clarifier is even having some of the blood removed that is not otherwise possible. It is not a question wishing it could be done; it can be done. The Greeley Sewage Plant is being made a whipping boy for all odors. My personal observation of the plant is that there is an odor from the activated sludge portions, which to me is not offensive. The digesters were giving off an odor which has been corrected. I wonder how people -78- can differentiate between the feedlot odors, the sugar factory lagoons, and so forth. In fact the most offensive odor I found in the area was found by walking upstream from the sewage plant along the Cache La Poudre River. I went one-half mile in the bed and saw many banks of grease and sewage sludge along the banks that could not have been from the Greeley Sewage Plant. It would have been possible to have come from Monfort, but in all probability was from other sources which will have to be corrected in a manner other than the proposal here, and is impossible to correct by anything that can be done by the Greeley treatment plant. Again I want to emphasize that I don ' t feel it is fair to solve sewage treatment problems in somebody else ' s backyard. I have been severely criticized for placing the sewage treatment plants too close to the areas which it is to serve. There is almost no place that isn ' t inhabited by someone in the near vicinity. They are innocent people, and just because the many have the economic and political power to override them does not make it morally right, especially to dump off the wastes that are that part of the economic advantages of cities and the industries that support the economy. In my mind it would be far better if it was mandatory that all wastes would be cleaned -79- up either in or adjacent to the area that created the problem. Only in this way will the individual citizen of the area demand and be willing to pay for cleaning up his own mess. To move the problem some distance away will relax the vigilance, both initially and continuing, to see that it is done. I would like to elaborate. That ' s the end of my formal statement. I would like to say a few things. I have heard the testimony here that packing house wastes and municipal wastes are not compatible, they won ' t mix. I know different. At Brush the packing house wastes consist of over two-thirds of volume and about nine- tenths of pollution control. They work very closely together. The plant is the mechanical -- incidentally it cost $240, 000. It can reduce 8, 000 pounds BOD daily. It requires and maintains from 96, 97, 98 per cent effi- ciency. The general average of the BOD going out to the river is approximately ten parts per million grams. They have been as low as three and four and five. And they do work compatibly. In fact, the matter is that in the conventional treatment plants and the ease in which packing house wastes can be reduced makes them particularly susceptible to the conventional type of trickling filter plant. At Sterling, Colorado, they had the problem that -80- has been prevalent here in Greeley. In fact, the matter is I was called in some -- I believe it was two years ago this May. The City Council and the packing house people weren ' t speaking to each other. Each was accusing the other of bad faith and all of those things. And so the first period of time after I was given authority to see if I could do something about the odor problems and resolving the problem, was to heal the political factions so they would speak to each other at least. That was accomplished. And the people running the slaughterhouse had a genuine interest in clearing the thing up. After a little bit of a discussion and an examination of the plant, I asked for and received permission to spend some $9, 000 which changed the routing through the plant from a parallel deal to a series deal through the trickling filters. In three months we had the odor problem pretty well cleared. And then we had many, many discussion of what to do, when and if they expanded 1,400 daily kill, 400, 000 is their present yearly kill, and the economics of this system and that stuff. The slaughterhouse people were called upon, many engineers, by many experts in the field, more or less to sell this equipment and that equipment. And then they finally come upon and they fabricated, very much by themselves, an effective screening system. -81- The area used is not large. It ' s very, very simple. And as I report here, it was very dramatic. I feel this. I have just what you call a superficial examination of the Monfort system, but I feel that in the Monfort slaughter- house that the recycling, the settleable solids, are the thing that ' s creating the larger problem here; that with very little expense and a very quick time, in fact not over two or three months, at probably less expense than an engineering study can take to be made, that we can dramatically clear this up and the problem will be solved to a certain extent at the present time. Now it ' s a great change, and I see the consulting engineers here locally that don' t believe that. But it has been done and I have seen it done and I know it can be done. Thank you. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Mr. Wells and Mr. Cruce, do you have any questions to ask Mr. Osborne? I have one question I ' d like to ask, and maybe I didn ' t understand you. It doesn ' t sound to me right, whether it ' s fact or what. You said it would take a half acre of lagoon for each steer that was slaughtered. CECIL J. OSBORNE: That is according to the standard size lagoon, according the the state criteria that the State of Colorado put it on. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: I would like to see that information -82- in fact. CECIL J. OSBORNE: You would? Do any of you gentle- men have a copy of the criteria put out by the State Health Board on sewage plants? JOHN HALEY: Apparently we don ' t have it with us. CECIL J. OSBORNE: Well, let me get at it another way. The requirements for the lagoon system, Evans, for example, or LaSalle, they would have one acre for every hundred residents and the coefficient commonly used for BOD loading per person is . 1700 BOD per person per day, BOD loading. The criteria for a sewage lagoon is -- 20 pounds is the maximum BOD loading per acre. That ' s the simple lagoon. Now on that same criteria, and I ' m quoting this from memory you understand, on the simple lagoon, the 33, 000 pound that is mentioned here would be some 1,650 acres I believe, if my arithmetic is correct. JAMES WELLS: I ' d like to speak to that point. He ' s talking about a free lagoon. In other words, the waste would be discharged directly from the packing plant into an open lagoon area and, of course, this isn ' t what we ' re talking about here. We ' re talking about two different things all together. We ' re not talking about a free lagoon system. We' re not talking about open lagoon systems. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: In other words, Mr. Osborne is referring to a lagoon that has no particular similarity -83- to this one? JAMES WELLS: Yes. CECIL J. OSBORNE: I might go just a little bit further. I made reference to this. I believe you stated that you were going to have 150 horsepower in the area of the portion of the lagoon; is that correct? JAMES WELLS: Yes, sir. CECIL J. OSBORNE: And that makes what is known as an extended aeration system rather than -- it ' s a reduction in time from the simple lagoon and a longer peiod of time than in the activated sludge in the Greeley Sewage Plant. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: In other words, this type of system could handle a great deal more than one steer per half acre? CECIL J. OSBORNE: This is correct. I want to point out again, the only reason, there will be offensive odors out of that particular odor, unless, and bear me out, there is a complete coverage of film across the top, am I not correct? JAMES WELLS: Yes, sir. CECIL J. OSBORNE: If that is thrown by a windstorm or anything of that kind, until its self-sealing is healed up, there is going to be an odor and a bad one. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Any other questions of Mr. Osborne? I mean just from the attorneys. We' ll open -84- up to the crowd later on. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: Mr. Osborne, would you explain a little bit about your experience in going to the present City of Greeley Sewage Plant and what you observed there now, how the present existing plant might be improved? CECIL J. OSBORNE: I hesitate to try to run some- body else' s business. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: Well, do you have an opinion whether it can or cannot be made? CECIL J. OSBORNE: There are -- I do have an opinion, and a very definite opinion, that it can be improved by the expenditure of relatively small expense. The vessel sizes and that sort of thing are quite adequate for very much more performance than it is now doing. I do have that point. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: I have no further questions. B. H. CRUCE: Mr. Chairman, on this Exhibit 2, I ' d like to call to your attention the fact that it is an exhibit opposing a lagoon. We are asking for regional sewage treatment plant site. I am not sure just how far you would go as to what kind of treatment, but although we realize that this is one of the great discussions, but please remember that this and the other petitions are opposing a lagoon. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: We will accept it for what -85- value it has. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, I think that a point is in order. Of course we rely a great deal upon the information until there is a public hearing. I mean, the information we get, word of mouth, so to speak, until we do get into this area. And of course we did not have access to all the exhibits and so forth in the planning area that I believe the paper said, at least, this was the first public showing of a comprehensive plan. Of course we' re not aware of exactly what was contemplated. And of course I think that Mr. Osborne' s testimony was designed to show an immediate way that this apparently has become a crisis issue, and even through the city ' s operation it ' s going to be March or April of 1971 before they would have a plan on Site 7 in operation. And we' re interested in reviewing and seeing if there aren ' t better ways to handle this treatment. Now we have with us a man from Sweden and his representativesfrom Denver who also are involved in sewage treatment and, if he could, without undue time just give a brief description of what they have to offer, I would like to call Mr. Ortengren to just briefly tell you what -- in other words, there are other ways of treating sewage without going to any type of a lagoon system. (Gus Ortengren was sworn. ) -86- GUS ORTENGREN: My name is Gus Ortengren. I 'm a member of the firm Alldredge & McCabe in Denver. We are manufacturers ' representatives and engineers. About a year and a half or so ago we became interested in a sewage treatment process that had been developed in Sweden and which the developer had obtained two American patents on. And just to briefly mention what it consists of, it is a plant that could be built in your city park and leave absolutely no odors of any kind at any time. It is totauy an enclosed building and part of the process is a rigidly controlled temperature, which is tied to the temperature of the incoming sewage. We have made a preliminary or drawing or estimate of what it would take to handle and precess three million gallons per day, which is what the Monfort Plant will eventually reach. And that could be treated in a building 300 feet by 100 feet wide and and at a cost that is comparable with what they expect to spend on the lagoon system. The initial cost admittedly will be somewhat larger, but I also think if you read into it you could obtain an additional government grant for it, because we have been in touch also with the Water Pollution Control office in Kansas City and they indicate that. So I would like to suggest that if you' re going to -87- spend a million dolars on a process, no matter what pro- cess you are choosing, it would well be worth your while or your Commission ' s to appoint some delegates and take a quick trip over to Sweden and see for yourselves what is over there. Seeing is believing. I took the Presi- dent of the Pepper Packing Plant over there a year ago when we came into this first plant that was developed. The first thing he said, "Well, I could sit down and have lunch right here. " There was absolutely no odor inside. And we had built a small pilot plant right now, and those two bottles you see right there, you can hold them up, that was taken out of Pepper ' s plant this morning. That was in-going. They have much more red than they should have,and that was out-coming two and a half hours later. That ' s about all I have to say right now. I think the people around here in this area are entitled to that consideration as an alternative. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: Mr. Ortengren, I ' d like to ask you a question, maybe you mentioned it. But what kind of guarantee is there with this system? GUS ORTENGREN: Well, I think that you can -- yes, the Swedish engineering firm, they will give you a writ- ten guarantee of what I just have said here can be done. And what we would also do is to treat, take the effluent from the packing plant and treat it so you can discharge -88- it into the river, to meet all Federal or state require- ments as to BOD and nitrate and phosphate contents. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: Thank you. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Where at in Sweden would these plants be located? GUS ORTENGREN: Well, the oldest one, the first one is up in Orsa, what would you say, three hours by train north of Stockholm. Very accessible. Since this first came up they have some close to 50 contracts, five or six have been rebuilt and four or five under construction now. Three or four more are going in next year. And they have commissions and study groups there from practically every country in the world. It ' s really caused an awful lot of notice. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Do you have any questions, Mr. Wells? JAMES WELLS: I was just going to ask Mr. Ortengren what the horsepower requirements are. GUS ORTENGREN: It ' s about 900. JAMES WELLS: This is the total horsepower for the complete system? GUS ORTENGREN: Yeah. JAMES WELLS: Thirty-three thousand pounds of BOD? GUS ORTENGREN: Yes. And the line requirements by regenerating the line, it wouldn ' t be anymore than about -89- two tons a day. JAMES WELLS: What are the horsepower requirements for the line regeneration system? GUS ORTENGREN: Seventy horse. JAMES WELLS: So there will be arecalcining plant -- GUS ORTENGREN: It will down the price considerably. JAMES WELLS: What about the initial cost? GUS ORTENGREN: Around a million dollars. JAMES WELLS: This is construction cost only for the line recalcining and treating system? GUS ORTENGREN: No. The recalcining system you would probably add another two hundred thousand dollars. JAMES WELLS: This is construction? GUS ORTENGREN: I would say that its first initial cost would not go over nine hundred thousand; combined would be about a million and one. JAMES WELLS: I just wanted to ask, the recalcining plant -- GUS ORTENGREN: That would be a great advantage because it ' s the recalcining of the line that is in the sludge, most of the weight would be burned to an ash, and your entire waste from this plant here could probably be contained in an acre. JAMES WELLS: So you would be looking at a thousand horsepower and a million one hundred thousand to a -90- million two hundred thousand dollars construction cost? GUS ORTENGREN: Over 50 years that would be a good investment, very advantageous. B. H. CRUCE: I would like to ask a question. What about the gas or burning of this, do you have to use nitro gas in addition to electricity? GUS ORTENGREN: That is in our operating costs. B. H. CRUCE: Is this a substantial amount? GUS ORTENGREN: No, it ' s not. In the estimate, as I mentioned there, we have precipitated scrubber for all the gases coming out. JAMES WELLS: What operating cost are you looking at, the operation and operation maintenance cost for the system? GUS ORTENGREN: I just said a while ago, it wouldn ' t be anymore than what they are prepared to pay now. JAMES WELLS: That doesn ' t answer my question. GUS ORTENGREN: That 's all I can tell you at this time. I haven' t got a written statement, but we will be glad to prepare one. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Mr. Ortengren, I ' d like to ask one more question. Would this be the final phase of this when it went into the river? GUS ORTENGREN: Probably. I can' t -- I took that out this morning, so it hasn ' t been analyzed. We can, -91- anyway, reduce this one here to a purity that will meet government standards. I think it ' s a little strong. Well, it ' s concentrated like this, yes, it is. But still it isn ' t very strong. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Quite similar to the Greeley sewage disposal plant right now. There would be more processing to this? GUS ORTENGREN: Oh, yes. You are welcome to come and see our plant down at Pepper ' s anytime. You will see, it ' s in a building ten by twelve. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: Mr. Chairman, and Commissioners, I wish you would take into consideration that these fellows were called in rather late in the game, and they were not given the advantage of an engineering study with which Mr. Wells has conducted, and they were not prepared heretoday to give a firm offer or anything. They had to rely on what little information we could give them of what we knew about the thing. The important thing is he says they can guarantee an odor-free sewage treatment facility. I would like you to hear from another expert, an expert in climatology you might say, a researcher to give you one more consider- ation and a consideration I think perhaps the planning committee might have taken into consideration in determining where the site should be, and that ' s Mr. Stohrer. -92- (Mr. Stohrer was sworn. ) MR. STOHRER: Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, there has been a good deal of discussion this afternoon about smells and how they originate and that they move about. And the subject of micrometrology concerns itself with that discipline. It ' s wise to point out at this juncture that whenever the sun heats the ground it sets up a thing called a temperature gradiant in the atmosphere, and when this temperature gradiant is in the right direction, with the continual fall in temperature with height as you go up in the atmosphere, then you have an effective mechanism for the removal of wastes, ground- borne wastes, smoke, what have you, that is generated out in the free world. What happens in the nighttime, on the other hand, is that in our region, with its low humidity and low and clear skies, is that there is an intense amount of radia- tion away from the ground and it produces a thing called a temperature inversion. Now these temperature inversions can be in many cases as much as three to four hundred feet deep, and they act as an effective barrier to the removal of smells or gases or smoke or odors or what have you. Under these conditions if you should charge up the air, beneath the temperatureinversion, these things would remain there until the next morning when the sun -93- rose and heated up the ground again and permitted you to set up the right kind of lapse condition. Now in our climate here we observe that something like 75 per cent of our days exhibit this characteristic temperature inversion. This is the thing that causes Denver their trouble with pollution situations and, as the Greeley area grows you can expect that these same temperature inversions will cause the difficulties here. Now the other thing that ' s germane to this issue is that as you release gases and odors or smoke or what have you close to the ground, the thing that we call the diffusion coefficient or a measure of the rapidity with which gases disappear from the site changes at an altitude of say half a foot from something over one hundred to something over ten thousand in the first 20 or 30 meters. And this is one of the big advantages for providing stacks for any kind of undesirable thing that you would like to get rid of. The other thing that ' s true very close to the ground is that the eddies in the atmosphere that do the diffusing mechanism tend to be very small. In the first 25 centi- meters or first foot, we find that as a rule these eddies are so small that the diffusion coefficient is again very small, something on the order of a hundred or slightly more. On the other hand, when you get up to six meters or -94- 612 centimeters, you are already talking about a thousand. And this again points us to the fact that some sort of stack or confinement for the waste would be a very desirable thing. This makes it possible to move the pollutant or whatever other thing it is that you would like to get rid of into an area where the diffusion is more acceptable. Now methods have been devised for determining down- wind concentration of any kind of attitude pollution that requires the solution of some rather involved equations, and I ' d rather not dwell on that at this point . But I ' d like to point out that the methods do exist and they can be applied. The main difficulty is that after some thorough search, I discovered that these measurements were not made for these particular sites, and I would recommend that as a form of planning for this and other activities, some attention be given to temperature inversion and of possible magnitude of diffusion coef- ficients that you would experience in these areas, to make this whole thing less of a speculation and more of a science. Thank you. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Any questions, Mr. Cruce? B. H. CRUCE: Only to ask Mr. Stohrer if he has made any study himself in this area, say Weld County, concerning that particular problem? -95- MR. STOHRER: I have not made studies in this area. That ' s why I ' m a little concerned, because without this sort of a study it ' s very difficult; as a matter of fact, it ' s impossible to present. B. H. CRUCE: In other words, any statement would be something of generality that you ' re talking about? MR. STOHRER: It is indeed. B. H. CRUCE: A text book statement. MR. STOHRER: One study was made in Platteville in connection with the nuclear reactor plant. That ' s where this 75 per cent inversion frequency comes from. The weather bureau has made studies in Denver which show that their inversions are five to ten millibars or 310 feet thick. It is my considered opinion that you may find something of the same sort here. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: How long would it take to build this? MR. STOHRER: The device I m talking about? UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: How long would it take to build this Swedish type? GUS ORTENGREN: Three months have gone by. I think it could be built in six months. At the time we spoke to various suppliers, excepting strikes and things like that, it could be built in six months. MR. STOHRER: Any more questions? -96- B. H. CRUCE: I would like to ask him one more question. How long would it take him to make such a study? MR. STOHRER: It depends on the depth of the study. If you were interested in an extremely deep study, I could carry on for an extensive period. If you are only interested in the inversion frequencies and coefficient frequencies, we are talking about a matter of only a few months. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: I have no questions. Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, the fourth point that I said I did want to make was this matter of economy. I 'm sure you can appreciate, we came in without knowing all of the facts and all of the things that were first made known really here today. But we did have an explanation from Mr. Osborne as to how the crisis situation which I 'm sure it ' s been led up to the Commissioners as being something that has to be done now, immediately, and yet it will do Monfort ' s no good until March of ' 71. There are other areas where Monfort ' s could be helped so they could go on with their expansion and go on operating, and I really feel that perhaps we have shown through that testimony there is a need for further planning for a 50-year basis and certainly for what is contemplated right now here today. -97- It is not the purpose of the environmental committee to push one method of treatment over another method of treatment, but we do and are interested in the environ- ment and we feel that the environment should be given top priority. If there are methods of treatment that do not take up agricultural land or land that can be used for other things, if there are methods of treatment which can reduce or even eliminate odor, we think that Greeley in their Centennial year and the County as a whole can be proud of the adoption of such a method. To base so much on costs as this preliminary plan of the City' s or I guess it ' s their final plan up to this point anyway, these base everything on costs, and we feel that when it comes to costs to our health or even aesthetic enjoyment of smell and sight, that the cost to the individ- ual or the cost to industries or the cost to concentration of people or governments is at no price too big a cost for the health of the people who have to live here. It ' s going to be expensive, any method. Greeley' s talking about eight hundred thousand. The Swedish gentleman was talking about a million. It s going to cost money. There is no doubt about it. But we should have the best if we ' re going to do it . We would urge at this time Site 7 be denied because there is further planning and further study that must be -98- done in the area. We have offered alternatives to meet the immediate crisis of the present sewage treatment plant. At least an engineer has testified that it could be done at a minimal cost, and that Monfort ' s, through recycling or screening, could go on operating and reducing the load on the present Greeley City Site. And this concludes our presentation. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Do you have any further questions? B. H. CRUCE: No. JAMES WELLS: The only comment I might make is that the construction cost of the system we ' re talking about, and he mentioned cost, is actually 677,000, and this would compare with a million two, one hundred thousand which is the cost that was just mentioned. And this is taken our of this report. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: I wasn ' t trying to make a point of exact dollars or anything. And two hundred, four hundred thousand dollars isn ' t a large amount. I did forget to call one witness, Herman Hoff. (Herman Hoff was sworn. ) ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: Before I ask Mr. Hoff a question, I think he would like to ask one of the engineers. He is the owner of the property but cannot place this precisely on the farm on this site to be taken. -99- HERMAN HOFF: You said 186 acres, more or less. I just wondered where it was located? JOHN HALEY: I said 150. HERMAN HOFF: On the hearing the guy said 186. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: I says "more or less" . HERMAN HOFF: Where is it located? JOHN HALEY: It ' s located -- well, as far as your property is concerned, the entire purchase would be all of your property south of the highway. HERMAN HOFF: Oh, south of the highway. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: We have no further questions. Thank you. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Any further testimony then either from the City of Greeley or from those opposing? B. H. CRUCE: Only a closing statement when you get ready. I was just informed that there are petitions here for this particular location, and I wasn ' t aware of that. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Are there individual people then in the crowd who are representing groups or organizations? (Alvin H. Tucker was sworn. ) ALVIN H. TUCKER: Mr. Chairman, my name is Alvin H. Tucker and I ' m here on behalf of the employees of Monfort Packing Company to submit to you a petition which there are 600 employees signatory to. I would like at this time -100- to read to you the petition rather than just bring it to you. The petition reads as follows: We the undersigned hereby petition the County Commissioners to approve so- called Site 7 for the purpose of a sewage treatment plant. We believe this will enable the expansion of present and future industry while relieving the present overloaded plant and provide a site for future growth of the entire area. On behalf of the people signatory to that, we certainly feel that it would behoove the Commissioners to render a decision favorable to the approval of Site 7. I would submit you this petition. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: You are representing the employees? ALVIN H. TUCKER: Yes, sir. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: I would consent to the admission of that if you will consent the admission of this. ALVIN H. TUCKER: I certainly will. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: This is what broughtabout the petition. SAMUEL S. TELEP: Could you properly identify that petition on behalf of the petitioners in favor of the installation. ALVIN H. TUCKER: It ' s a petition in favor of the -101- proposed Site 7. (Employees ' Petition Exhibit A was marked for identification. ) (Protestants ' Exhibit Number 3 was marked for identification. ) CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Are there other individuals who are representing a group who have petitions or something to present? (Jess Bond was sworn. ) JESS BOND: I ' d like to say at this time that I also passed a petition around up at Monfort ' s, and this petition says that, "We, the undersigned, do oppose a construction of an open lagoon sewer system on the river due to air pollution, water pollution, especially the contamination of wildlife if such a system is built. " I work up at Monfort ' s and I believe that that letter that you have just received -- in a way I don ' t feel that the union was involved. And on my part as being a union member, I feel that it was misrepresented because I feel that on my own behalf that Mr. Tucker didn ' t have any right writing this letter. And it made the people, the employees up there at Monfort ' s, feel that they were in a way obligated to sign it. And so I took it upon myself to draw up my own petition opposing it, the lagoon-type of a system. If I came out and said I opposed Monfort -102- himself I would have way too much objection to this. I work for him, and I ' d like to say that I like to work for him and he ' s a fair man. But, on the other hand, I have approximately 300 signatures here that are opposed to open lagoon-type systems. (Employees ' Protestants ' Exhibit A was marked for identification. ) CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Are there any other people representing groups of people who have petitions or would like to make a statement for a group of people? (Stanley Christman was sworn. ) STANLEY CHRISTMAN: Mr. Chairman, County Commissioners, my name is Stanley Christman from Kersey, Chairman of the City Planning Commission. First of all, I ' d like to say that I believe this has left the planning stage and has gone into a crash program. I ' d like to read to you shortly from a copy of "Colorado Municipalities" , May, 1970. It said the quality of environment is a fragile concept, yet it is the most vital and complex issue of the day, an issue on which the survival and effectiveness of local and state government may well depend. Harold A. Wise, the President of the National Planning Consultants firm told over 160 planners and city and county officials from throughout Colorado at the Twelfth Annual Institute for Colorado -103- Planning Officials at the University of Colorado in Boulder, March 19th and 20th, environmental concern, Wise said, transcends partly for special interest group identification. Everyone is involved. It is, as President Nixon said, when he created the National Council on Environment, a now or never task for the 1970s. Participants in the conference included local officials, public works directors and professional planners, as well as representatives of a considerable portion of Colorado' s 153 regional county and city planning commissions. A number of panelists shares Wise ' s concern over the fouling of our planet by past generations. Commented B. H. Cruce, Greeley City Manager, the Cache La Poudre River, running through Greeley, is black with sewage. And just recently that area, the area that contributes a major part of that sewage, an area over which we have no jurisdiction, got permission to continue sending us their sewage. Just how much hipocracy can we tolerate? I would like to say that in the maps and so forth that we have had, it has been announced in the paper and brought up here before, Mr. Cruce said the presentation will include the presenting for the first time publicly of a portion of the City ' s comprehensive plan by Robert Britzman, Planning Consultant for the City. We cannot -104- prepare an adequate defense, nor can we weigh a situation properly when we don ' t have any information to go on until the date of the hearing. But my concern, as far as the town of Kersey is concerned, we are trying in our small way to do some planning out there. We have requested the State Planning Office to assist us with a land use and thoroughfare study in and around the town, which they are graciously backing out of and said we should come to the County Planning Commission now. But on the map that shows the growth, there was nothing said of how many years that all this was going to take place and how large Kersey was going to be 25 years from now and how much we needed this metropolitan sewage lagoon. I would submit to you that the cost of running the pipe from our town across the river, which we would probably be prevented from doing, over to this plant would be ridiculous. We could never, regardless if we had two or three thousand people over there in that town of 487 today, we would probably never revert to going to this metropolitan area. The only reason it ' s called a metropolitan area is so that we can get the Federal funds. Some mention was made about the name lagoon on the petition. There is the anaerobic lagoons and the aerated lagoons up there. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Anybody have any questions of -105- Mr. Christman? Mr. Cruce? B. H. CRUCE: No. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Is there anybody else who is representing a municipality or some people? VICTOR CLINE: I ' m not representing a municipality; an area. (Victor Cline was sworn. ) VICTOR CLINE: My name is Victor Cline and I live at Kersey. This isn ' t the first time that we' ve had this problem, but it ' s the same problem. The problem as we see it out there is somebody' s trying to get into our pockets for the benefits of their own. We get no benefits out of the dollar valuations of the Monfort Feedlots in the Eaton District or in the Gilcrest District. We get no dollar values out of the Monfort Plant here in Greeley. But we are to catch all of the you know what at Kersey. With the planning you had, you showed where now it isn ' t just the Monfort sewage that we ' re supposed to get, we' re supposed to be the backhouse for all of Weld County. And I think we have a right to come up here and to be a little bit alarmed. There are people in the area that are out there because it was pointed out today, you have a lot of pollutions up here. We don ' t have quite as many out there. Now we' re to absorb the same thing without any compensations whatsoever. We get no tax dollars, but -106- we ' ll be robbed of tax dollars. Mr. Hoff asked about selling his farm. They ' re going to buy the one across the road. He might as well give them the other one. The only time he ' ll ever sell it is when you condemn some more land for this County lagoon. You show a line running from Monfort ' s going out there, but I never saw one place where the Greeley line was hooked into it. And to get Federal aid, I think you have got to have part of the residential sewage in it. I don ' t know. I know Mr. Monfort has a problem and I ' m sure that he' s a big enough man and I don ' t think he ' s financially hurt to where he wouldn ' t and couldn ' t put his own in and would do it if they would just give him the opportunity. And he would probably put it on his own land. I don ' t think this should be our problem. I don ' t think it should be forced upon us. I don ' t like walking down the street after the Site 6 hearing and have everybody talk to me as, "Well, how' s the lagoon battle?" I don ' t like it. And I don ' t think we should have it out there. You deterriorate that area more so than you do the rest of it, but it will catch on and it will keep escalating. You have been pointed out here today that there is ways of cleaning a little bit of their own back doors. -107- I ' d like to mention one thing that the honorable Mayor had in the paper after Mr. Haley said that there was some erroneous remarks made in there, unfactual. He said the area surrounding Greeley makes their living directly or indirectly off of Greeley. I wish you would take a look at it just in reverse. Greeley makes their livelihood directly or indirectly from all of the area around here. Without the rural area Greeley would be blank. They imposed a city sales tax in Greeley. I don' t like to come up and help produce the sales tax in the City of Greeley, paying them one per cent. But we ' re almost obligated to on a lot of the things we have to purchase. It was in the paper that it reduced the taxes and brought in so much revenue. So we ' re already supplementing the City of Greeley with our tax dollars. For this reason we have a school district -- I brought it up in the Site 6 -- we have a school district out there that ' s suffering for valuat ions and you ' re going to kill us if you keep this up. You won' t annex us because you don ' t want the lagoon. That ' s why you ' re trying to get rid of it. I think for this reason we should be left alone out there. I don ' t care what they have to build it out of, just so they keep it out of our area. And there is ways of making this thing work. I can -108- point out that it ' s been mentioned here today that this sewage system has never worked totally since it ' s been put in. And, too, Mr. Cruce' s statement about two years ago, after a new one was in for so many years, it never worked, there was a sediment on the bottom. Now the lid ' s falling in and you don' t fix these things. I think the problem, if it would be kept up as it ' s being torn down and used, I don ' t think you would have near the problem today. I ' m not taking any offense against Mr. Monfort. I think he' s been wonderful. But I don ' t think that you as County Commissioners should make a judgment whether one person hires a thousand people and somebody else hires one. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Any questions, Mr. Cruce? B. H. CRUCE: No questions. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Any other people representing a certain area or certain town who would like to speak? (Sam Sameshima was sworn. SAM SAMESHIMA: I am Sam Sameshima. I live at 429 - 1st Street in Kersey, and I try to run a grocery store. Mr. Chairman, Board of the County Commissioners, friends and probably quite a few enemies: I am opposed to Site Number 7 because of the location and potential foul odor which I assume it will expel. It is located -109- two miles north of the town of Kersey, not only north but it is north and a little west. When there is any breeze or wind, I would judge that 90 per cent of the time it would blow directly to the heart of Kersey. The offensive odor would be the problem. Why couldn ' t a location at least a couple of miles west or east have been chosen so that at least you would not zero into Kersey, the only populated community east of Greeley. This is not in our backyard. It is in our front porch. Now through all of our discussion, the Greeley government tries to minimize this as only Monfort of Colorado sewage with approximately 40 acres or so of lagoons, while extolling the benefits of Monfort ' s of Colorado to Weld County. Now I might look stupid but I ' m no dummy. I think. And I realize that tremendous benefits that we all receive through Monofrt ' s of Colorado. In fact I have many custo- mers that trade with me that are employed by Monfort ' s of Colorado. However, I am sure that if Site Number 7 is approved, the Greeley sewage will soon be brought also. After all, isn' t this the Greeley sewer system? In fact, you have in the past subtly stated that Kersey might even use the facility, as though that would help approval by the Kersey people. And it has been mentioned that Windsor, -110- LaSalle, Eaton and so on were having sewer problems. Now then, we have Monfort ' s and Greeley sewer at an estimated 640 acres of lagoon, according to an engineer. How many more acres will it take to handle the other communities? By this time we just don ' t give a darn, because I think we are ended up as the bunghole of creation. Now it won ' t just be the town of Kersey and the people that reside in the area of Site Number 7, but it certainly would bother the hundreds of people in the sourrounding area that do business in Kersey. How would any of you like to come from a clean area, so to speak, and into a community that smells of sewer and eat a meal or buy groceries, some of which will absorb the foul odor, or do any kind of business or even visit it. About the most quoted last word I will be hearing around there will be "let ' s get the hell out of here. " This, ladies and gentlemen, would be the ruination of our marginal community. We also have the elementary school, the junior high and the Platte Valley High School located in Kersey, which is attended by hundreds of children and students. Here is also the centralized offices and center of School District RE 7. Most all of the school programs and functions are held in Kersey. These all draw hundreds of people and many times more. We have athletic competitive activities which draw hundreds, sometimes more. -111- These people all, or the majority, would come from the outlying areas, which they come from a clean odor area, and when they come into this foul smelling area they will notice it especially more. And that is also true with the children that attend the school. They come out from a clean area and are brought into a foul smelling area. Now you have had many sites before you came into our area, so to speak, and many of these sites were acceptable and approved by either the County Health Department, your Planning Commission, by Monfort ' s of Colorado, by your engineers and mostly they were more economical. However, it seems that your problem was that some of the people objected. So, consequently, you turned them down. Now then we in the town of Kersey and the area around the proposed Site Number 7 respectfully ask that you consider us as people, and we as people are vehemently opposed to Site Number 7. Or I just wonder if it makes a difference who the people are. I also feel that the residents of the Greeley area, as Godfearing men, have a moral obligation of taking care of their own waste created by them and primarily to their benefit in their own area, as all other people must do. Now speaking of God reminds me of one of Confucius ' sayings. Confucius said, "He who emits gas in church sits in his own pew. " -112- Now the point is this: He who emitted the gas can stand the odor and in fact with the pressure out of his stomach he feels quite well and satisfied. He may even be smiling. But, on the other hand, the Christian sitting beside him, he jumps up and hollers "hallelujah", he takes out of the room. Now this is analogous to our situation here. The moral of this story is, if you were the cause and you benefit from it, you can stand the odor, while we in the Kersey area will not be able to run fast enough. I also feel that Greeley has a legal obligation to stay in their own area. The common consensus seems to be that if you a site, a municipality needs a site, all they have to do is go up and condemn it. I think there are some stipulations to that. I think the law would certainly state that it is permissible only after all of your local resources have been exhausted and there is not too much opposition to your new site by the resi- dents and the users around that new area. I feel quite positive that you have not exhausted all of your resources, because some of the previous sites were basically approved and were opposed by less people than Site Number 7. As for the opposition to Site Number 7, you have had all these signed petitions. Now these signatures constitute only the residents. There were hundreds more of users -113- who would have liked to sign the petition, but just couldn ' t do it because of the wording of the petition. Now as legal proof and for the record, I would like to have you observe and record the show of hands of those who vehemently oppose Site Number 7. It seems to me that Greeley is in dire need of a sewer disposal expert. It is quite obvious that you can ' t do it with the personnel which you have. It was stated in the Tribune that for most the odor of the East Greeley plant was unbearable. This is an under- statement. It has been unbearable for years. If this is the kind of management we can expect in our future plant, is it any wonder that we are here to object at this stage? I ask you, the Board of County Commissioners, to please search your souls, would you annihilate a small community like Kersey so that a great prosperous community like Greeley might not have to increase their sewer rates by about a dollar? Isn ' t it ridiculous that the Greeley government, with all their vast resources, must call upon the 35, 000 residents to come out today to battle for them, so to speak, against the pathetic town of Kersey, population less than 500. All I can say to this is big deal. Well, gentlemen, I didn ' t aim this at the Board. It was to whom it may concern. Although I am facing you, -114- many of the remarks were not made to you. And I might have sounded a little harsh, rude and sarcastic, but you must also realize that we are fighting for our very livelihood and for the survival and continued existence of the town of Kersey. I implore upon you as Godfearing men to look at this with the humanitarian point of view. I respectfully thank you to take into consideration some of the points and views that I have brought to your attention. I thank you for your time and your patience and sincerely hope that you will soon arrive at a satis- factory solution. Thank you very much. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: I think we ll take five minutes. (Recess taken. ) CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: At this time I d like to call this back to order and make a couple of observations, that unless there are those people who have a petition or statements from a group of individuals, if it ' s just single expression, why, we ' re going to start limiting this to two minutes. We have a time watch here and if we raise our hand and stop you, you will know your time ran out. I think before we go any further, so it is read into the record, I would like to call on our County Planner to read the decision of the County Planning Commission into the record. (Burman Lorenson was sworn. ) -115- BURMAN LORENSON: My name is Burman Lorenson, and I 'm the Weld County Planning Director, and I ' d like to read to the Commissioners the recommendation of the Weld County Planning Commission. The recommendation for Site Number 7 is for approval for the following reasons: One, the Site is appropriate for a regional sewage facility that can serve not only Greeley but has a possibility of serving all the municipalities in the adjacent areas that are upstream. Two, the soil survey of the Site submitted by the U. S. Soil Conservation District indicates the soils at this location were well suited with little physical limitations for the location of a sewage treatment facility. Three, there is sufficient area in the legal descrip- tion submitted to provide an expansion as a regional facility. Four, the Site is located above the one hundred year flood plain and yet not at an elevation that would create an undue pumping expense. And finally, five, with the exception of squatters ' dwellings, proposed use is compatible with all the sur- rounding land uses. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: At this time are there any other people who have petitions for groups of people? You have a petition for a group of people? -116- MARGARET BENAVIDEZ: It ' s not a petition. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Just individually, right? MARGARET BENAVIDEZ: No; it ' s for an organization. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: All right. (Margaret Benavidez was sworn. ) MARGARET BENAVIDEZ: I am Margaret Benavidez. I am here as a representative of the newly formed organization known as GAINS; that ' s for the Greeley Association for Improvement in Neighborhood Surroundings. I would like to say that we whole-heartedly support the lagoon site. We feel that any stoppage of further production of Monfort of Colorado is harmful not only to employees due to layoff but to future employees. We feel Monfort has given many people what no other industry for miles around has ever done, and that is an opportunity to raise our standard of living to earning a decent wage. Furthermore, as a resident of the east part of Greeley, we feel something definitely has to be done immediately. Not only does the value of property depreci- ate but the present smell is unbearable. We feel that there is a greater majority of people living around the present sewage plant that have to put up with the smell than there will be in the area surrounding the proposed lagoon site. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Are there any other people who -117- are representing organizations or groups? If not, from now on we will limit each individual to two minutes to express their views. CHARLES ACHZIGER: Mr. Chairman, County Commissioners, my name is Chalres Achziger. I am right adjacent to this lagoon site. They talk about the front porch. Mine is the back porch, eight hundred feet. I have the pictures here if you care to look at them. I can show you where it is. Do you want them? CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: All right . CHARLES ACHZIGER: This is my own place. I can point it out. Here is the line. It ' s 800 feet from here down to here. Here is the ground where the lagoon ' s going to be. See this different soil there. But here is the line. This runs down just a little bit past my place. The Ogilvy Ditch goes right along here, and then this comes up here 800 feet. So it 's right on my back yard. SAMUEL S. TELEP: Did you take that picture, Charles? CHARLES ACHZIGER: Yes. Here is our other place. That 's my son ' s place. And that ' s just a little further away, about a quarter of a mile further. But I 'm just showing you what ' s in that neighborhood. Now I worked hard on this, my neighbors all helped. So I thought I would have to get up and say a few words. If you noticed in the Post Sunday there was a little -118- piece in there where they said they were taking out one million and a half acres out of production every year, cities, roads, lagoons. How long can we go on with this, taking this all out of production? We have got to stop someplace and figure some mechanical thing out. Now this soil here that they want to take, that brings per acre, for example, between and eight and nine hundred dollars. I ' ve got the proof of that. There is one place right adjacent to it. That brought one hundred twenty-five thousand. Now is this right, to go out here and have this good soil and put lagoons on it, take it out of production? They ' re talking about 50 years. Twenty-five years from now what are they going to eat if we have it all in lagoons and factories and stuff like that? What are we going to eat? We have got to figure out some way to keep this agriculture ground in production, not take it out of production. So help me, you know, taking good soil. I was born in a sod house west of Greeley and I got a lot of dirt in me. I ' ve been on a farm all my life, and I own property in Greeley. It ' s my home town. I ' ve been here 68 years. I ' m only 32 years younger than Greeley is. I seen it grow up. But can we make a mis- take like that, coming in here? Where are you going to stop with them lagoons? They ' re talking about putting -119- this all together. Stop and ask yourselves, where are they going to stop if we put it all in lagoons. I don ' t know. Let them figure it out. Lot of them say Mr. Monfort. Sure, he ' s fine in here. But could Mr. Monfort exist if us farmers quit selling him ensilage corn? Where would he go? It takes us farmers to keep it going. One farmer goes broke, the other stands right behind him and takes his place. You know the beet checks, everybody used to wait always for the beet checks. Now they want Mr. Monfort. Well, sure, I ' d want him too, but let ' s play together. Let ' s do it the right way. And I hope you gentlemen use the right judgment. Thank you. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Is there anybody else who would like to individually make a statement? KATHARINE McELROY: Mr. Billings, may I address a question to the Planning Commission gentleman? CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Yes. KATHARINE McELROY: Did you take into consideration at all the mechanical, legitimate, conventional type treatment of sewage in your plans? BURMAN LORENSON: No. We only considered the land, the facility, what it was requested to do, and how it related to a regional facility and what it would do on a regional basis plan. KATHARINE McELROY: Is there any reason why in your -120- recommendation you should not include some recommendation regarding the type of treatment facility recommended? BURMAN LORENSON: We didn ' t feel -- I can ' t speak for them; I can speak for myself. I didn ' t feel that I was expert enough in treatment of sewage to make recom- mendations on this purpose. We relied on the ability of what we knew to be experts in this area. KATHARINE McELROY: Do you not feel as a Planning Commissioner your function is to arrive at the most desirable planning for a community? BURMAN LORENSON: Yes. KATHARINE McELROY: Would you say then that possibly you could have very well considered in your premise the type of facility that you would recommend if you were recommending location of a site? BURMAN LORENSON: Would you repeat that, please? KATHARINE McELROY: Well, plain and simply, do you not feel it could have been a part of the Planning Com- mission ' s legitimate duty to consider all the aspects, including the type of facility that would be placed on the land when you made your recommendation to this facility or this location, that this was desirable to the whole community? CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Kaye, could I answer that for you? I think we ' re getting out of the realm of the -121- Planning Commission. Their job is only if this site would be a logical site or a fitted site for a sewage plant. Their technical abilities as far as what type of a plant should be put there, whether it should be lagoons or an enclosed plant such as these gentlemen, this would have to come from the engineers. KATHARINE McELROY: Nevertheless, Glenn, when you're planning communities, I think you take into consideration the creation of odors or sewage plants and what type of sewage plants, if you are doing this kind of recommending, because a planning commission ' s work has great weight. And if they come in and say "we recommend this site" , what have they weighed in recommending this site? Have they weighed an open lagoon system that ' s going to be obnoxious to a lot of people? I think a planning com- mission ' s function is to come into that kind of evidence also. BURMAN LORENSON: I think the Planning Commission had been presented information of this sort. There was a trip that was taken back to Nebraska sites where these things were being operated. It was investigated what the odor was like. In some cases the odor was bad. In one particular case, the odor was almost unnoticeable. And there were I think one or two members, two members of the Planning Commission besides myself, that went on that -122- trip and they felt from what the engineers had been telling them and their on-site inspection, well, I can ' t say exactly what they felt, but apparently their votes reflect some of it, that this is not so bad. When you can walk out on the catwalk like I did on one in Nebraska and it doesn ' t gag you like the one here in Denver does, and you can walk 50 feet and hardly smell it at all, then I feel it deserves consideration. KATHARINE McELROY: Then you really did take into consideration this factor, the type of facility that would be on the land? BURMAN LORENSON: Yes. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Anybody else? MRS. HAROLD PFEIF: Do I need to be sworn in? CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: No. MRS. HAROLD PFEIF: We happen to have bought the property that Mr. Achziger mentioned across the road from him in Section 5, and I wrote to the Mayor. At that time there was no mention of this Site 7 at all. I got a letter back from the Mayor saying that it would always hurt some people, but he was sure that the valuation of the property wouldn ' t be hurt as I thought it would be or we did. But we are in the process of getting a loan and if this lagoon goes through, the loan is going to be considerably less than could be obtained without the -123- lagoon in that area. So it is devaluating the property. And I don ' t feel like the people of Greeley should have a right to, oh, do this to the people east of Greeley. Thank you. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: This gentleman here. HERMAN HOFF: I don ' t actually own this ground. My mother does. I wonder if we have anything to say one way or the other? CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: This would be a question that would be hard for us to answer. Acutally we are holding this hearing only to a site location, and your negotiations for this sale of land would be between you and the City of Greeley and not the Board of County Commissioners. HERMAN HOFF: What if we preferred not to sell? CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: I think a municipality such as Greeley or any othermUnicipality does have the right of condemning. Are ther any others? DALLAS K. BAKER: Yes. I 'm Dallas K. Baker, Chief Petty Officer, United States Navy, as a recruiter here in Greeley. I ' ve pretty well traveled this country over from Florida, San Francisco, I ' ve lived in Kentucky. I was born and raised in an agricultural town in Ohio, Wooster, Ohio, about the same size as Greeley. Has a college. Has about 20 factories there. We have never -124- had trouble with our sewage plant. There has never been an odor. It discharges in a creek. Why, in a twon that ' s older than Greeley, they have had their centennial, they can build a place like this and Greeley can ' t . Mr. Haley says we live out there next to a feedlot and, incidentally, I live on the southeast corner of Webster ' s Feedlot. Three or four days out of the month we may get a smell off of Webster ' s Feedlot. I have never smelled the river, even at flood time. Now I 'm wearing my uniform because a statement was made we ' re all farmers out there. Well, I 'm not a farmer, I ' ll guarantee you there. Now in all my travels I chose Greeley to retire. I chose this area. I ' ve picked what I thought was a nice place to live, six miles east of Greeley. And now they want to put a sewage lagoon directly across the highway from me. In the Book of Popular Science, if a lagoon is designed and can operat properly, it will take over 100 years for one foot of sludge to actuate. Generally, communities with populations of five hundredto fifteen hundred use this sytem. If the lagoon is designed and operated properly. The sewage system down here may not have been designed properly, but it definitely was not operated properly. Through the negligence of the people of the City of Greeley, it has left go, gone completely -125- into decay. I think that ' s what you smell down there, a decay. of the plant itself. What guarantee do we have, if they put this sewage system in out there, that they will maintain it properly or any better than they did this one. That's all I have. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Is thereanyone else? JOE WILLIAMS: My name is Joe Williams and I 'm from Denver, a sportsman and a spectator. I am here as an individual. However, I am a member of several wildlife and sportsmen groups in the area. I have hunted on the Platte River in this area for six years, and many of my friends also. We are spectators to what is occurring, and we are disturbed that this can occur in our century to destroy or impair the natural environment. Now we in Denver are as guilty as anyone in the nation of this occurring. But I think certainly a city the size of Greeley, with the type of people that you have here and the resources available, can come up with a better solution than you have offered at this point. I have attempted to become involved in this simply as a concerned citizen, to see, become involved, that my children, my grandchildren, have a type of environment that is better than perhaps was left to me. I think that we all as responsible citizens at this point have a responsibility to do better than those who were ahead -126- of us, to clean up some of what has been done rather than contribute to it. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Are there any others? UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Well, I ' m just a farmer ' s wife, but I ' ve worked awful hard. The only thing I heard about the lagoon system is that it is cheaper, We skimp and we save and we try to get a tractor. Don ' t you think if something is worthwhile it ' s worth putting a little more into it? Has this been contested before or is this some- thing new? For a little bit more money, it sounds like we would be getting an awful lot more. JOHN HALEY: I will answer that. The Swedish system was discussed with the City Council. Mr. Wells has discussed it with the proponents of the Swedish system. It is an untried system in this country. It has never been proven as far as any application to an actual situation. No one is criticizing the Swedish system, because you have to face the facts of life that you must have Federal authority, state authority and so forth to get approvals for these things. And these things have never been done. Now I ' d like to, while I m on my feet, Mr. Chairman, comment that the only thing that seems to be being said about this is odor and pollution. This gentleman who is a sportsman, I certainly think what Greeley ' s trying to -127- do is to do the very same things that this man is talking about. We are trying to treat the sewage, trying to solve this problem and put it into the river to the best pos- sible standards. You have heard Mr. Wells testify and I will speak on this subject for him because I think it would be a little bit embarrassing for him, but this man has designed numerous facilities such as this. This is the best possible modern solution we can find. Mr. Monfort testified to this. It ' s the best solution that technical people can find. Its purpose is to improve the environment. Thank you. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yet you testified that you wouldn ' t want it in your backyard and I don ' t think it ' s fair to push it off on someone else. And also you testi- fied that it could be put within a hundred yards of any church, right? JOHN HALEY: This is what the public health people have said, yes. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: We will recognize individuals as we go along, and not have an open discussion. The lady in green. MRS. DALLAS K. BAKER: Mrs. Dallas K. Baker. I was raised in the same city in Ohio that he was, and I would like to know why Greeley has what, one big packing plant? Our home city in Ohio, and I lived there 22 years, and I ' ve -128- been away from it since I had my children, traveling around with him in the Navy. We never had any problem with the sewage system back there. And I know the Swedish system sounds very good. Wooster, Ohio, and if you men will do your homework, maybe you will check and see what kind they have, they have had it for years and years, ever since I was a little girl. It is enclosed. It has never smelled. The water that comes out of it does not smell. You can swim in thatwater. Now the Swedish system evidently isn ' t the only solution and I 'm sure that if that sewage plan can take care of the sewage from 20 or more huge factories, Greeley can come up with one that will take care of Monfort Packing Plant. MRS. HENRY PRINTZ: I 'm Mrs. Henry Printz, Junior. And my mother, Mrs. Rayburn, here lives directly across from Site 7 and we resent the fact, it seems with all the knowledge and technical ability that everyone has that you should be able to come up with a better solution to this than to take good farm land. What is wrong with using waste ground? You know we make our living off of the farm and we depend on this. Now if you put this lagoon in there, what if my mother would ever want to sell her farm. She would have to take a property loss. I don ' t think the people in this City are taking into consideration -129- everything. JOE WILLIAMS: I ' d like to respond to the gentleman who spoke in regard to my comment. He said this is the best system they can find. And I counter with, at what cost. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: We will have one or two more. LORENE ACHZIGER: We live right in the immediate area. My name is Lorene Achziger. And we have been ap- proached by real estate salesmen to sell our farm for houses, for plots. We don ' t desire to do this. We love it as it is. We love our clean fresh air in our com- munity and our beautiful countrysides. But if we desire to do this, we wouldn ' t have one bit of trouble selling off and having plenty of beautiful homes out there, and much more valuation in our district. And I think they forgot that when they made the plans, because we could sell our land any day we want to for home sites and it won ' t be worth anything if the lagoon goes in. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: The gentleman here. GEORGE F. JURGENS: George F. Jurgens. They ' re building lagoons at Scottsbluff, Nebraska. It has a packing plant and an oil refinery going into it. It has half the population of the City of Greeley and was examined and tested by Herman Scott, Professor, was examined by the children in the college, and this plant is on 200 acres -130- of land and is not doing a job today. The fish, algae that goes into the river is deforming the fish and the ducks are dying on the lagoon. And we ' ll have ducks die on this lagoon also. And they ' re dying at Hudson on the lagoon which is Denver ' s, and it ' s one of the most terrible lagoons there is. They ' re building lagoons. Who built Scottsbluff ' s lagoon? Are these the men that built the Scottsbluff lagoon? It sure wasn ' t a very good one. Nine years of service and no good. It ' s right here; I have proof. JAMES WELLS: I might respond to that. We did not design the lagoons at Scottsbluff. The lagoons at Scottsbluff is what the gentleman referred to earlier as open or free lagoons. In other words, the entire waste is dumped into theopen pond. There is no pre-treatment. There is no extended aeration. None of these things. However, right across the river from Scottsbluff at Gering, Nebraska, there is a Swift Packing Plant and the City of Gering and Swift Packing Company, along with a dog food plant, combined to build a municipal plant that employs anaerobic lagoons, aerated lagoons and final polishing lagoons and is effectively handling not only the waste from the Gering municipality but from the Swift Packing Plant. This received the approval of the State Health Department, the Federal Water Pollution Control -131- Administration, and received a grant, and it is doing an effective job. And we did design that system. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Are there any other people who haven ' t spoken to the matter? We will give you one more crack. DALLAS K. BAKER: All right. I want to ask Mr. Wells a question. Where do you get the air? JAMES WELLS: The air is provided by floating aeration devices, which are probably the most efficient means of incorporating oxygen into the waste. DALLAS K. BAKER: You don ' t get the air out of the atmosphere? JAMES WELLS: No, sir. The oxygen is generated by floating aeration devices. It ' s a motor that operates a marine propellor that brings the oxygen in contact with the waste by a pumping action. As the gentleman responded here earlier, in fact I ' ll quote what he said, a layer is developed on the anaerobic lagoons that is primarily due to the grease that leaves the packing plant, because of the higher temperatures when it enters the lagoon it cools. This layer then effectively covers the anaerobic lagoons and provides a blanket over those anaerobic lagoons. Then from there you go into the aerated lagoons and this methane is a highly oxidizable material, and when it comes -132- in contact with the oxygenated waste in the aerated lagoon it is oxidized into carbon dioxide and water, and this is what we rely on to provide effective odor control. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Are there any comments by any other individuals who haven ' t spoken? EARL DUNN: I 'm from the Game Department. I want to ask him how much of the effluents of this oil a going to go back out into the river? JAMES WELLS: The grease of which we speak is removed in the anaerobic lagoons. There is a detention time there of approixmately six days, which is more than adequate time to allow the greases to float to the surface. In the aerated lagoons the waste is further oxidized, and when it leaves the fine clarifiers and goes to the polishing lagoon, there really isn ' t any grease left. And any final traces would be removed in thepolishing lagoons. EARL DUNN: What is the City going to do if this does sludge up the river? JAMES WELLS: Well, of course that ' s a problematical question. It ' s rather difficult to answer because, in my professional opinion, I don ' t think that will happen. EARL DUNN: It has happened in other places. JAMES WELLS: Not with this type of system. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: I have a question for Mr. Haley. -133- Now is this system designed just for the packing plant this system right here? JOHN HALEY: The initial construction and the one defined on the board is for strictly the packing house waste. However, Mr. Wells has explained I think that after we go through the anaerobic process, then municipal waste can be added, and can be treated in conjunction with the other wastes through the aerated lagoons, the clarifiers and thepolishing lagoons. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: You also stated that the present sewage is in ill-repair. JOHN HALEY: The south plant, yes, sir. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Okay. How many years will it be, or will it be months, before they want to dump every- thing out there? Can you answer that in your projection? JOHN HALEY: Well, our Task Force report dealt with this question. I presume I should proceed. The Task Force report did deal with this and we cited the fact that the old plant is 15 years old now, that it does have some useable life if major repairs are made. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Will they be made or will they just dump everything right there? JOHN HALEY: I 'm only a member of the Task Force. I would refer to Mr. Cruce, maybe he can answer better. But we did cite these facts. Another five years, maybe another -134- ten years might be gotten out of the south plant . We have a new plant on the north side of the river that is only five years old. Its bond issue life is what, Ben, 20 years. So, sure, the city is planning on at least that much use of that facility. Other than that, I can ' t really answer your question. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: In your report, I don ' t know, maybe I misinterpreted it, but didn ' t you say that the waste from the plant now to the present sewer is partially clogging the line, didn ' t you say that? JOHN HALEY: I said from the Monfort Packing Plant. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: To the present -- JOHN HALEY: And before it arrives at the sewage treatment plant it has turned septic. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Okay. That ' s what, a mile? JOHN HALEY: Mile and a half maybe. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: And you are going to take a company ' s word that they can push it six miles without the same thing happening? JOHN HALEY: One of them is a gravity-flow line with no provisions at all except going by whatever the fall will allow. The other is a forced pump situation where we take the sewage right from the plant, put it in a pump and pump it directly there under pressure. Yes, it has to be delivered if it ' s to function properly, it -135- has to be delivered promptly and at this speficied temperature. And it isn ' t a question of taking anyone ' s word. This is the designed consideration. These things will all be provided for in the design. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: I feel like the fellow said over here, what if, when these astronauts go to the moon they have got to experience situations, what if this happens. They have got to be tried here first. Are you really going to take their word that they can pump it that far and keep it at that temperature? JOHN HALEY: I 'm an engineer and I would be most reluctant not to take another engineer ' s word, whom I respect. Yes, I do take his word. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: Are there any other individuals who haven ' t had a chance to speak? MR. STOHRER: How large an area are we talking about with the anaerobic lagoon "blocks"? JOHN HALEY: Three acres. MR. STOHRER: Is it prohibitively expensive to keep them over? JOHN HALEY: They will be kept over. MR. STOHRER: Other than the grease plug. JAMES WELLS: You ' re looking at about $5. 00 a square foot. MR. STOHRER: How big? -136- JAMES WELLS: Six acres. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: I think then if there are no other questions or statements from any individuals, if, Mr. Cruce, you would like to sum up the City ' s side of this. B. H. CRUCE: Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. I would like to say first that I think the City Council of Greeley is very conscious of the quality of life that we have at this time, and that a number of things have happend at City Hall in recent months that indicate their concern. They have been very concerned about this sewage problem and have tried to hire the most qualified people to give us advice on this subject. And as a closing statement here, I would like to read a part of a bulletin that was sent out by the Depart- ment of Interior, Federal Water Pollution Control Admini- stration from Washington, and this was put out in March of 1970 concerning grants for construction of treatment plants. And it ' s under the section heading "Region and Metropolitan Plan" . And I think that ' s the thing we have been trying to talk to you about under your zoning ordinance. "A grant for a project shall not be made unless the commissioner determines that such project is included in an effective metropolitan or regional plan, developed or in the precess of development and certified by the governor as being the official pollution abatement plan -137- developed or in the process of development for the metropolitan area or region within which the project is proposed to be constructed. " And I assure you that the City of Greeley is very conscious of the problems that have been expressed here, and I think a lot of them are assumed. And of course until it ' s actually built that ' s the only way we can really know for sure. But we have done the best planning that ' s I think possible to do. We have hired qualified engineers and consultants on this project and in accordance with our zoning requirement we sincerely and earnestly plead for you to grant approval to Site 7. Thank you. ROBERT C. BURROUGHS: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, we appreciate you taking the time to hear from other concerned citizens in this matter. I think it misses the issue to say or to interpret the fact that we are not accusing Greeley, in a sense, of not hiring competent help or pushing this Task Force to arrive at a conclusion. But I think that the evidence here and the testimony shows that they were pushed into this planning and they planned hastily to meet what has been termed a crisis situation, that being the potential layoff at Monfort ' s. Now they did have, it ' s true, a crisis in their own plant, and this was from lack of planning. And we urge -138- the Board to consider this and not let them act out of haste just because there is a crisis or because there is something that is urgently needed to be done. We think that we have offered alternatives that indicate that more planning need be done before a site is selected to serve the area for the next 25 or 50 years. We have shown that they could handle the problem right here with little changes in the things that they have got. They say that some of our fears are unfounded. That may be. But at the same time some of their projections might easily be said to be unfounded too. For instance, the pipeline, there was no citing of any source that this did work. And I think thatthe engineers would be first to admit that oftentimes while it may work on the drawing board, in practice, it may not work. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: At this time I think everybody has been heard. We appreciate all of you being very down to earth about this, without any extraordinary demon- strations. You are to be commended for your very good remarks on both sides. At this time I would entertain a motion from one of the Commissioners : COMMISSIONER MARSHALL ANDERSON: Mr. Chairman, I move we take this matter under advisement until the tran- script is made. -139- COMMISSIONER HAROLD ANDERSON: I ' ll second the motion. CHAIRMAN BILLINGS: As Chairman of the Board of County Commissioners I ' ll make this unanimous. And as soon as a decision is made, you will be notified. This hearing is adjourned. (Hearing adjourned at 7: 50, p.m. ) -140- REPORTER' S CERTIFICATE STATE OF COLORADO ) ) SS: COUNTY OF WELD ) I, Colin J. Campbell, Certified Shorthand Reporter, State of Colorado, hereby certify that I took in stenotypy all the proceedings had and done in the foregoing hearing on the 3rd day of June, 1970. I further certify that the foregoing transcript is a complete and true transcription of my stenotype notes. Dated this today of June, 1970. / v:///e Colin J. , Campbell, -'CSR -141- Hello