BREAKING NEWS

At 5 pm Thursday word from the general assembly, the house and senate confirmed the senate version of the landfill legislation was approved.

This would indicate it would be impossible to site the green swamp proposed landfill.

______________________________________________________________

Fate of Green Swamp landfill still uncertain

By NICOLE CARTRETTE
Staff Writer

Legislators will decide today if landfills across the state will have to meet tougher rules and regulations. They may also determine the fate of a regional landfill planned for eastern Columbus County on a 700-acre site off N.C. 211 in the Green Swamp.

A year-long-moratorium expired yesterday after both the N.C. House and Senate failed to reach a compromise on the Waste Management Act of 2007 but negotiations continued and two readings of the bill took place in the House just before midnight yesterday (Aug. 1).

The bill requires developers to meet stricter requirements, regardless of when they applied for a permit.

The landfill couldn’t be within two miles of a state park or one mile of a game land. Land around the Green Swamp landfill site is owned by the Nature Conservatory and leased by the state for game lands.

Sen. R.C. Soles, Jr. said in his opinion it would keep the 107-acre landfill out of the Green Swamp. He introduced the amendment on July 26.

It was a provision anti-landfill advocates, Friends of the Green Swamp, were enthusiastic about. By yesterday morning they were desperate for lawmakers to keep it in the bill.

While lobbyists for the waste industry were pushing legislators to end the moratorium and pointing out several landfills statewide are reaching capacity, FOGS and other environmental groups were there too.

Roughly two-dozen FOGS joined forces with other Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League affiliates on Wednesday (yesterday) to lobby representatives in Raleigh.

“The House is where the challenge lies,” FOGS Chairman Steve M. Smith said, pointing out there was opposition to the bill from the League of Municipalities and committees such as the Black Caucus.

“We just have to wait and see,” Smith said hopeful that stricter regulations are passed into law or the moratorium is extended.

“If neither happens we will oppose this on a legal and regulatory front –we’ve been doing this for seven years,” Smith said. “We will do anything legal, ethical and moral to oppose the landfill.”

The regional landfill will accept a total of 1,500 tons of waste from roughly 30 or more counties in North and South Carolina, according to a 2000 report filed with the Board of Commissioners.

The House didn’t agree with the change and a conferee committee between the two houses was appointed. Soles, one of the conferees, said the game land provision remained in the bill agreed upon in the conferee committee.

“The House is back tracking now,” Soles said Wednesday.

Rep. Dewey Hill was still hopeful however the bill would make it in the House. “As it stands now it’s okay for Columbus County,” he said. “In a poll vote we had almost enough to do it.”
The landfill project in Columbus County was initiated by Riegel Ridge LLC, a subsidiary of Waste Management, in March 2000.

County records indicate that the original developers turned the project over completely to Waste Management a few years ago.

In March, the N.C. Division of Environment and Natural Resources, Waste Management Division, made recommendations, if passed into law, that would make the permitting process for landfills more costly and environmental protections more strict.

The project had not obtained a permit to construct or a permit to operate when a moratorium was imposed statewide last year. The company had jumped several other hurdles.

Prior to that, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers issued a permit allowing developers to fill in a two-thirds acre wetland at the location southwest of N.C. 211 at Roberts Road. Opposition from groups such as FOGS emerged and the group unsuccessfully challenged a state water quality permit the developers had been issued.

With the blessings of five of seven Columbus County commissioners and promises of $1 million per year in county revenue, the project continued to move forward until state legislation would bring all landfill projects in the state to a halt.

Columbus County currently has no active landfill. In the late 90’s the landfill at New Hope was closed because it did not meet new standards. The county pays more than $6 million a year in trash pick up and waste disposal fees to Waste Management, part of that includes a fuel surcharge and tipping fees for trash that is hauled to the Sampson County regional landfill.

See Whiteville.com today for updates as the legislation moves through the House.