Court: Marlboro County 'megadump' plans can proceed

The S.C. Administrative Law Court has dismissed Marlboro County’s petition regarding a proposed landfill.

The decision means the court agrees the state Department of Health and Environmental Control was correct in issuing a permit to MRR Sandhills LLC to building the Sandhills Regional MSW Landfill on about 900 acres near Wallace, which is in the northern part of the county near the North Carolina border.

The county, however, will have a chance to appeal the decision if it chooses to do so.

Should Marlboro County Council decide not to appeal, former Bennettsville mayor Lucy Parsons said the group, Concerned Citizens for Marlboro County, will.

Parsons said the group has filed an intervention and has hired James “Jimmy” Chandler Jr., president and general counsel for the S.C. Environmental Law Project, to appeal S.C. Administrative Law Judge John D. McLeod’s decision.

“If the county (doesn’t appeal), which wouldn’t surprise me a bit for them not to carry on, we will,” Parsons, who is a member of the group, said in a telephone interview. “The county has had very strange behavior all along.

“I think some of the council members wanted the landfill to come, but they didn’t really want to say that because it didn’t look good,” she said. “So, they’ve done a pretense of protecting the citizens. Our group has hired an attorney and we’re prepared to keep going. This is not over.”

Belvin Sweatt, chairman of Concerned Citizens for Marlboro County, said the fight against the megadump isn’t over; rather, he said, it’s just beginning.

“We’re certainly disappointed that the judge would make a decision like this because South Carolina is just being trashed on,” he said. “We have people that just don’t care about the state ... but we’re going to fight it.”

Sweatt said the group will distribute flyers informing the public about Marlboro County Council’s planned public forum on the S.C. Administrative Law Court order at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Marlboro County Courthouse.

“What the citizens will finally find out is whether or not Marlboro County has really tried to do anything and how each member on the council stands on this issue,” he said.

Telephone calls to all members of Marlboro County Council were not returned by press time Monday.

Adam Myrick, a spokesman for DHEC, said the agency’s attorneys haven’t had a chance to review the ruling and declined to comment.

“It is our standard practice to not comment on that until we have a chance to review (it),” he said. “And if we may go on in the appeal process, we won’t be discussing anything that has any pending litigation.”

The Solid Waste Management Act passed in 1991 requires major landfills to be 75 miles apart.

And while the so-called “megadump” proposed in Marlboro County meets the requirement, if built, the Pee Dee would have more than double the capacity for waste removal than it needs.

A referendum vote November in Marlboro County on whether the dump should be built found that 94 percent of county residents opposed the idea.

Marlboro County contended DHEC didn’t assess the need for the megadump as it should have under new regulations and asked the court to void MRR Sandhills’ permit.

The court disagreed in the order for dismissal, which was issued Monday.

“This Court also finds that the County will not lose its right to appeal any of the issues the County has raised heretofore, and will have another opportunity to appeal all of these issues at the end of the public notice and application process, thus the County will not be prejudiced by the dismissal of these consolidated appeals. Accordingly, dismissal pursuant to Respondent DHEC’s Motions and on the foregoing grounds is appropriate,” McLeod wrote in the order.

Most of the waste buried in South Carolina’s megadumps comes from out of state. This prompted Gov. Mark Sanford to propose raising the state’s garbage fees to discourage the out-of-state waste. The tipping fee would be $3 for every ton of garbage.