GRAND FORKS (AP) - The debate continues over a proposed new Grand Forks landfill, with state Health Department moving toward a permit decision next year.

Dave Glatt, who heads the Health Department's environmental section, said Friday his department's preliminary finding was that the proposed Rye Township landfill met state regulations. The department is taking comments until Feb. 4 to check "if there's anything we didn't see," and then will review them and make a final decision on the permit, he said.

Opponents say no landfill is safe. At a hearing Thursday night, they asked the Health Department to push the city to find other ways to dispose of garbage.

Supporters of the proposal believe landfills are safe and necessary.

The Grand Forks County Citizens Coalition, GFC3, the main landfill opposition group, asked for and got permission for a second public hearing, scheduled Feb. 2, so it could have time to evaluate the city's data.

Daryl Bragg, who chairs GFC3, said all landfill liners fail in time. The tons of garbage will settle at different rates on the ground, he said, and that difference eventually tears the liner protecting the ground from pollutants.

The existing Grand Forks landfill, also in Rye Township, has been in operation since the early 1960s. It leaked in the 1990s, but the pressure of groundwater seeping up caused the leak to spread across the ground rather than seep downward. It has since been fixed.

Richard Gross, a priest who lives southwest of Grand Forks, said the city should invest in new technology to deal with such garbage as fluorescent light bulbs containing mercury.

Harvey Gullicks, a University of North Dakota civil engineering professor, said new garbage technologies are expensive and some that seem attractive, such as incineration, generate ash that contains pollutants.

Steve Swanson, a Grand Forks County resident, said he supports the landfill because he worries about high garbage costs if garbage has to be trucked to other landfills.

City Council member Eliot Glassheim said landfills are not perfect but they are heavily regulated and monitored by the state.

"Going forward, I hope you all will remember that 100,000 people depend on the landfill," Glassheim said. "Two hundred or 300 people are inconvenienced (by the landfill)."

Officials have said Grand Forks is the first city in about 15 years to go through the state permit system for its landfill.

Federal officials say the city's current landfill is too close to the airport. Glatt said the city has some time but "the sooner they can get it moved, the better."