Public Comment · Arbor Hills

Written Public Comment: Materials Management Plan Siting Requirements

by Trisha Kunst · resident living less than one mile from the proposed expansion border · submitted August 19, 2026

This is the written comment I submitted to the Washtenaw County Materials Management Planning Committee, the body now setting the minimum siting rules that would govern any Arbor Hills expansion. It is the shareable copy of what is in the county record, with one reviewer's direct contact details removed so it can be forwarded freely.

To: Washtenaw County Materials Management Planning Committee (via the Department of Public Works)

From: Trisha Kunst, Resident less than 1 mile from the proposed expansion border

Re: August 19, 2026 concurrence on the minimum siting requirements (Arbor Hills Landfill / GFL)

Date: August 19, 2026

I am submitting this in writing to complete my in-person remarks and to put on the record the requests a two-minute comment cannot fully cover.

The lever this committee controls: the MMP minimum siting criteria

Michigan's siting law sets up two tiers in a materials management plan. The minimum siting criteria apply to a facility seeking consistency under the plan. The supplemental siting criteria are written for facilities that do not have host community approval, and a facility satisfies the statute by having either host community approval or those supplemental criteria (MCL 324.11585(3)(c); companion MCL 324.11580(2)).

Read plainly, that means host approval is an alternative to satisfying the supplemental siting criteria. So the only MMP-specific protections that necessarily apply to a proposed expansion regardless of host approval are the minimum siting criteria.

Two things follow.

I want to be fair about what a host agreement is. It is a negotiated public contract, it can contain real and enforceable terms, and federal and state permit requirements bind this facility no matter what any host agreement says. My point is narrower, and I think it is the one that matters today: a term that lives only in a host agreement is negotiated by bodies this landfill pays, and it is renegotiable by the parties to it. A term written into the MMP minimum siting criteria is not. If this committee wants a protection to apply to an expansion regardless of what Salem does, the minimum criteria are where it has to go.

The factual basis: a documented elevated-temperature history, and an expert's review

From EGLE's own semi-annual Wells of Interest (WOI) filings:

I asked an elevated-temperature-landfill specialist to review this record: Todd Thalhamer, P.E., senior waste management engineer at CalRecycle, president of Hammer Consulting Services, and CalRecycle's lead technical responder for major landfill reactions including the Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Val Verde, California.

I want to be precise about what he reviewed and what he concluded. He reviewed this site's elevated-temperature history and the materials documenting EGLE's 2022 and 2025 subsurface-oxidation events here, not a site visit, and not current operations. On that record, in writing on August 18, 2026, he concluded:

He wrote that he would be "happy to assist where [he] can," and he gave his permission to be contacted by the county directly. His direct contact information was provided to the committee with the official-record copy of this comment and is not reproduced in this shareable copy.

To be clear about the limits of that opinion: it is an assessment of the historical record and the 2022 and 2025 event materials. It is not a conclusion that Arbor Hills is actively smoldering today, and I am not asking this committee to treat it as one.

Requested minimum siting criteria

I ask the committee to write the following into the minimum siting criteria:

  1. A required Subsurface Elevated Temperature (SET) Event Plan and Smolder Prevention Plan for the operator, the specific recommendation of Todd Thalhamer, P.E., on his review of this site's record.
  2. Continuous, publicly accessible wellhead and environmental monitoring (temperature, oxygen, methane, carbon monoxide) with a defined action level and automatic notification to the county and state, and down-well temperature recording consistent with NSPS/NESHAP.
  3. An independent technical review of the siting criteria by an elevated-temperature-landfill specialist selected and paid by the county. Mr. Thalhamer has reviewed this record, has offered to assist where he can, and has given his permission to be contacted by the committee directly (Todd Thalhamer, P.E., Hammer Consulting Services).
  4. Testing, at the operator's expense, of the private residential wells nearest the landfill (last sampled by the state in February 2020, with nothing since), with ongoing PFAS monitoring and results made public. Salem Elementary's own public supply is sampled about once a year and has come back non-detect for the regulated PFAS in every round; the households nearest this landfill should receive at least the testing the school already receives.
  5. A defined margin of safety for the closest homes, Salem Elementary, and Ridge Wood Elementary, so protection does not depend on a later contract.

The county is not powerless here. It holds the one MMP lever that applies regardless of host approval: the minimum siting criteria. I ask it to use it.

Respectfully,
Trisha Kunst
Resident less than 1 mile from the proposed expansion border
arbor-hills@trishakunst.com

Sources for every factual claim above are itemized on the accompanying source sheet, submitted with this comment and also available on request.

This is advocacy, prepared by a resident. It is the shareable copy of a comment in the Washtenaw County public record; one reviewer's direct contact details were removed so it can be forwarded freely. Every figure traces to a primary regulatory record or a named source. See the evidence brief behind these requests, or write the county commissioners yourself.