SNOHOMISH — After not obtaining proper permits from the county for over a year, recycling company DTG can no longer operate its facility near Maltby, under a new ruling issued by the Snohomish County hearing examiner.
The findings validated a slew of complaints from neighbors about DTG. For months, residents reported issues about escalated noise, dust and traffic at the 18827 Yew Way site.
By July 15, DTG must stop accepting material at the site. Two years from now, the company also needs to remove stockpiles of materials there.
DTG staff need to apply and obtain proper permits and certificates for unpermitted buildings and land-disturbing activity on the site, in addition to closing its recycling facility, county Hearing Examiner Peter Camp determined. The company has until fall 2024 to obtain proper permits, or else remove the buildings.
Lisa Jansson and her husband own a 5-acre property adjacent to DTG’s facility. She told the hearing examiner she wears hearing protection if she spends more than an hour outside. Using a noise meter, Jansson found sound reached 65 to 70 decibels when the company’s tub grinders chopped up woody debris. Inside her home, noise dropped to about 40 decibels, but she still compared it to a dishwasher that can never be turned off.
“I don’t hear birds anymore,” Jansson said in a previous interview with The Daily Herald. “I hear grinding.”
In March, water flowing along the edge of Jansson’s yard — typically clear and blue — turned brown and foamy and smelled of sewage.
Jansson and fellow neighbor Patti Olsen took a sample and submitted it to a lab. It showed high levels of fecal coliform and E. coli, according to results from AM Test Laboratories. The fecal coliform, at 28,000 colony-forming units per 100 milliliters of water, was 140 times greater than levels allowed at a swimming beach, under federal guidelines. But a test conducted by county officials several weeks later found 470 colony-forming units per 100 milliliters of water, Olsen said, still higher than allowable levels at a swimming beach.
Foamy brown water, emanating a smell similar to sewage, runs along the property line of Lisa Jansson’s home on Tuesday, March 5, 2024, in Snohomish, Washington. Jansson said the water in the small stream had been flowing clean and clear only a few weeks earlier. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Since the hearing examiner’s decision, Olsen said operations at the DTG site have been “louder than ever.”
She is happy about the ruling, but worries DTG may request the hearing examiner to reconsider the decision.
“We can’t live like this forever,” Olsen said in an interview Tuesday.
DTG has until May 13 to request reconsideration.
A DTG spokesperson declined to comment.
Last month, DTG and county surface water management staff visited Jansson’s property and took samples of the polluted ditch water.
DTG offers recycling to commercial, industrial and construction clients. The company has several recycling sites in Western Washington, as well as a landfill in Yakima.
Last year, DTG acquired United Recycling’s facility on Yew Way, and along with it, a history of violations.
County code enforcement had previously found United Recycling in violation of constructing and occupying buildings without proper permits. United Recycling appealed the findings, arguing the company sought permits from the county in the past, but its requests were refused.
When DTG took over, the company accepted the violations that workers constructed buildings without following county protocol. But DTG disputed the county’s allegations that operations at the Yew Way site were not allowed in an R-5 zone, or a “rural 5-acre” area. The area has been zoned that way since 1966.
Last week, the county hearing examiner noted operations at the Yew Way site exploded over the past two decades. An annual report submitted to the state Department of Ecology found the facility processed more than 130,000 tons of material in 2022 — over seven times the weight of wood waste the site expected to process in 1999.
Jansson, Olsen and other neighbors said noise, dump truck traffic and dust from the facility became more of an issue when DTG took over in 2023.
The county is not issuing any penalties at this time, said county Planning and Development Services spokesperson Jacob Lambert.
If DTG does not comply with regulations by the set dates, the county may issue penalties at that time.
Ta’Leah Van Sistine: 425-339-3460; taleah.vansistine@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @TaLeahRoseV.
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