Junkyard meetings attracting crowds

By Tom Hintgen (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Thursday, July 3, 2008

Several provisions of the proposed Otter Tail County Junkyard Ordinance were debated during the first of four informational gatherings and public input sessions held at Pelican Rapids and Parkers Prairie. The final two informational meetings will take place July 9 at the County Offices, New York Mills, and July 10 at the Government Services Center, Fergus Falls. Both gatherings will begin at 6:30 p.m.

The purpose of the proposed ordinance is to control the establishment, location and operation of junkyards in Otter Tail County.

The definition of a junkyard, as written in the proposed ordinance, refers to “an establishment, place of business or place of storage or deposit, which is maintained, operated or used for storage, keeping, buying or selling junk, or for the maintenance or operation of an automobile salvage yard or graveyard, where the materials, or discarded materials stored are equal in volume to five or more motor vehicle units and which may be bought, sold, stored or exchanged or used for parts.”

Junkyards in operation on the date of enactment of the ordinance, if approved by the five-member county board of commissioners, would be required to obtain an initial license no later than 12 months after enactment of the ordinance.

Approval also would necessitate that no individual, partnership or corporation could operate or locate any junkyard on a site, 1) within wetland areas, 2) within a flood plain, 3) within shoreland areas, 4) in a site where the water table is within five feet of the lowest elevation of the property used as a junkyard or 5) within 1,000 feet of an existing adjacent dwelling unit present at the time of initial licensing.

All large junkyards would need to be screened on all sides from public view by a solid fence or dense plantings of not less than eight feet in height. In meeting this requirement, the junkyard would need to either be solidly fenced or have appropriate plantings within one calendar year from the date of the initial junkyard operating license.

Should plantings be provided to meet the fencing requirement, such plantings would need to be approved by Otter Tail County and would be of such type and planting density to provide, in the words of the proposed ordinance, “a solid screening of the junkyard within three calendar years after planting.”

The entire proposed junk yard ordinance is on the Otter Tail County Web site. Click on departments, then solid waste and access “Junkyard Ordinance (draft).