Company to go before board on Wallace landfill issue

A company seeking to build a highly-contested landfill in Marlboro County will go before the county’s board of zoning appeals this month in an effort to keep its plans for the project moving.

MRR Sandhills LLC, the company seeking to build the so-called “megadump” on about 900 acres near Wallace, submitted a supplemental development permit application for certain land uses on Aug. 28 — three days before Marlboro County Council and Planning Commission members voted against a zoning change for the project, Marlboro County Administrator Robert Cecil Kimrey said.

MRR sought a zoning change from the planning commission because its project is not allowed under the county’s general development.

Opponents of the landfill said the submission of the permit application to the county’s board of zoning appeals was an avenue to appeal the Sept. 1 decision made by the county’s planning commission and county council to reject a rural resource designation, which, if combined with a special permit, would allow the landfill to be built.

That’s not true, Kimrey said.

The county’s planning commission serves as advisory body to county council, so any decision made by the commission has to go before council for a final vote, he said.

Once a decision is made by Marlboro County Council, that decision cannot be appealed to the board of zoning appeals, he said.

Any decision made by county council is final and can only be re-examined in circuit court, Kimrey said.

MRR would have to submit an application pertaining to the landfill to the board of appeals for approval regardless of what council and the planning commission decided, he said.

The board of zoning appeals meeting to consider MRR’s application is public and scheduled for at 6 p.m. Sept. 22 at the Marlboro County Courthouse in Bennettsville.

A decision about the project will likely be made at this meeting by the board of appeals, Kimrey said.

If the proposed Wallace-area landfill is 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 landfill should be built found that 94 percent of county residents opposed the idea.

On July 20, the S.C. Administrative Law Court dismissed Marlboro County’s petition regarding the 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 near Wallace, which is in the northern part of the county near the North Carolina border.

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.

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

“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,” S.C. Administrative Law Judge John D. McLeod wrote in the order.