Friday, Oct. 30, 2009

Dump critics win a voice in Horry County

Neighbors will have an opportunity to negotiate quality of life issues surrounding a potential expansion of the Horry County Solid Waste Authority landfill off S.C. 90, after they met a Wednesday deadline to hand in a petition.

Residents in the Sterritt swamp area were given until 5 p.m. Wednesday to turn in 25 signatures from neighbors, 20 of whom had to be registered voters and property owners, to move forward in the Facilities Issues Negotiations process outlined by the state. The negotiations are a mediated process in which a board of 10 neighbors elected by the petitioners will meet with the waste authority to discuss issues surrounding the quality of life and property impacts from the proposed expansion, which still is awaiting permit approval from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.

"We've sent the list of about 70 names from the petition to the county tax assessor's office and to the county voterregistration board to be cross checked, but we don't anticipate that there will be any problems," said Mike Bessant, governmental affairs manager for the authority. "From here we have 15 days from the due date to hold a meeting with the petitioners."

The negotiations are part of new state requirements for permitting of new landfills or landfill expansions.

The Solid Waste Authority applied for a permit in August to expand the current landfill by filling in a valley left between two existing hills created by landfill waste. The area is located in the center of the existing landfill site and will not increase the facility's land area.

The state process doesn't require the Solid Waste Authority to solve the concerns the citizens' board presents, only to listen in the negotiations process.

"We don't have to do anything except listen, but it's really in our interest to talk with the neighbors and try to come up with compromises or remediation where we can," Bessant said.

Some of the neighbors who live near the facility and signed the petition said they had concerns about traffic volume on S.C. 90 and speeding, along with trash falling from the trucks and the general look of the road. Maxine Gatlin lives in the Hillsboro community off of S.C. 90 hopes to be one of the ten people chosen for the negotiations board.

"I think there's a lot of hearsay and there's a limited number of things we can discuss with them or negotiate. So, right now, I think a lot of us need to have some basic things answered before the meetings really start," she said. "I don't want them using 90.

"There's a road there that goes back to the landfill that isn't complete, but I don't know if that's something that they're willing to negotiate. We also don't want them to double tier the landfill because pretty soon it's going to be so tall you see it from the highway, but again, I don't know if that's something we can negotiate with them about."

At a meeting in September, Art Braswell, an environmental consultant working with the waste authority said environmental issues are not part of the possible negotiations because they will be addressed by the DHEC permitting process. Braswell said some topics that can be discussed include operational issues, recycling efforts, protection of property values, traffic remediation and road maintenance, and establishing a local advisory committee to continue representing the neighborhood concerns to the waste authority.