Landfill
plan is
rejected

By LEE HINNANT

They didn’t say “maybe,” or even “probably not.”

Columbus County commissioners gave developers of a proposed construction debris landfill a resounding “no” at Monday night’s meeting.

“This commission will not entertain any action on a landfill located off Old Lake Road at this time,” moved Commissioner Bill Memory. The motion passed unanimously, accompanied by roars of approval by an emotionally charged, standing-room-only audience.

Donald “Red” Epperson sought a franchise and host agreement from the county for the Sandyfield Construction and Demolition Recycling and Disposal Center. The agreement would have allowed him to seek required state permits to recycle building materials and dispose of construction debris on 47 acres of a 113-acre site.

Epperson said it appeared that Waste Management would maintain what amounted to a monopoly for waste disposal here. “I respect y’all,” Epperson told commissioners. “But y’all ain’t heard the last of me.”

Commissioner Sammie Jacobs said the county had twice entertained similar proposals in the Guideway area, only to reject them because of protests from neighbors.

“I don’t know of any interest on this board,” Jacobs said. “I couldn’t welcome it at any site in the county at this time.”

Commissioner Amon McKenzie said every constituent who had approached him about the project opposed it.

Epperson recalled how the Sandyfield Town Council had granted the project a 30-year franchise agreement, but failed to annex the site, located more than a mile form the Sandyfield town limits. That’s why he wanted the county’s approval, he said.

Commissioners said Epperson’s dispute was with Sandyfield, not Columbus County.

A vocal, organized group of opponents has fought the proposal for more than a year. They fear the project would attract excessive truck traffic and cause pollution of streams and groundwater.

Epperson and his environmental consultant, Lamar Priester Jr. of Columbia, S.C., said the project is vastly different from a traditional household waste landfill.

The Sandyfield site could not accept food waste, chemicals, containers and the sorts of trash disposed of by homes and businesses. It would pile up only sorted construction debris that could not be reused, such as concrete block and brick, scrap lumber, shingles and drywall.

Epperson said all stormwater runoff would be held in ponds on the site and that the runoff itself would be less polluted than the oil and fuel-tainted runoff from the parking lot of a supermarket.

Priester told commissioners that the site was not within the county’s Watershed Protection Area, which specifically precludes landfills and limits development density. Priester said a newspaper report placing the site within the protection are was wrong, and that the site was 0.2 miles outside the protected area.

After Priester and Epperson left the meeting, County Planner Stevie Cox presented a detailed map that clearly shows the landfill site is within the Watershed Protection Area, as reported by The News Reporter last week.

“I just wanted to say ‘thank you,’” said Christine Hall, a Sandyfield resident representing opponents of the project. “This is going to come up again and this is not what Columbus County needs.”

Hall said she and her neighbors objected to “out of state developers pushing their trash on us.”