Marlboro County landfill opponents plan to march on Statehouse

By: Jamie Durant/Morning News | SCNow
Published: February 20, 2008

Concerned Citizens for Marlboro County are planning to take their case against a proposed landfill near Wallace to the governor’s office March 5.

Belvin Sweatt, chairman of the group, said Gov. Mark Sanford advised the group that a section of the statehouse steps will be available on that date.

“We had planned (the march) for today (Wednesday), but we had to reschedule,” Sweatt said.

Sweatt was among the nearly 100 people — some wearing garbage bags — who attended Tuesday night’s Marlboro County Council meeting.

Sweatt said they wore garbage bags to remind council members they are worth more than garbage.

“We are also going to wear garbage bags to the Statehouse,” he said.

The majority of the people who came to Tuesday’s meeting to protest the landfill were forced to wait in the hallway because of the lack of seating in the meeting chambers. Council chambers has seating for less than 20 people.

“We had requested that a larger place be established for us to meet and they still did not do anything where people would have enough seats,” Sweatt said.

Marlboro County Administrator Cecil Kimrey said “a few people” wearing garbage bags showed up for the meeting but he said he did not see many of them.

The proposed landfill wasn’t on the agenda for Tuesday’s session, which led to a number of people being refused the opportunity to speak on the subject because of a new rule put forth by county council.

“We were not allowed to speak because suddenly county council has decided you can only speak on the agenda items for that night,” Sweatt said. “Prior to late January, we could sign in to speak on any subject we wanted to.”

Kimrey said he is not aware of whether the rule has ever been used, since, he said, he is still new to the office.

“I’ve not been here that long, but last night it was placed on the agenda because we had a number of items to get to,” Kimrey said.

But, he would not elaborate on whether the rule had been used since his time as county administrator.

“I’m not saying that we have or haven’t,” he said. “There’s nothing else to say about it. That’s all I have to say.”

Sweatt said one woman who signed up to speak about the landfill had recently purchased land in the area where the landfill is proposed to be built.

Sweatt said she told him if she had known about the landfill, she would have never bought the property.

“As soon as she stood up to speak ... concerning the megadump, she was told she could not speak,” Sweatt said.

Sweatt said he thinks the recent discovery of potentially hazardous waste-filled drums in the old Adamsville School has given even more gravity to the case for keeping the landfill out of Marlboro County.

Marlboro County landfill opponents plan to march on Statehouse

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