County one step closer to landfill site choice

More than 200 people attended a hearing on a proposed landfill agreement between MRR Williamsburg LLC and Williamsburg County Council on Tuesday night in Kingstree.

Many of the attendees wore red ribbons symbolizing their opposition to the landfill.

During its meeting Tuesday,  council approved second reading of a contract with MRR to accept Nesmith as the recommended site for the landfill. The council will have third and final reading at 6 p.m. Oct. 2 during its regular monthly meeting.

Before final reading, however, a special community meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Sept. 25 at Nesmith Baptist Church to answer questions about environmental concerns.

“New York City is already sending a large quantity of garbage to South Carolina,” Dr. Hal Heidt, a Nesmith native, said Tuesday. “If this comes in, it’s not going to be a Nesmith issue, it’s going to be a county issue. We’ll have big trucks rolling through Hemingway and Kingstree.”

“Do we want to be in the profit-making business by taking other people’s discards,” Heidt, who lives in Garden City, asked. “It’s a psychological affect that deteriorates the human environment — people will expect us to continue to do this.”

The site selection caught Nesmith residents by surprise. The first public mention of the plan occurred at the county council meeting Aug. 26.

The council had contracted with MRR, a private company and a subsidiary of MRR Southern of Greensboro, N.C., to do the preliminary work on the landfill, including selecting possible sites.

The company selected three sites but recommended the Nesmith site as the best one, based on its engineering suitability and minimal impact on the residents. The council had first reading of a contract with the company to accept the recommended site and have the company develop it at its regular meeting Aug. 26.

The site is called “Big Woods” and is situated along the CSX railroad, about midway between Nesmith and Turkey Creek Road.

Williamsburg County has a consent agreement with the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, allowing it to continue use of the present landfill near Salters, as long as progress is being made on the new site. The timeline for the new site is about two to three years.

Scott Brown, a consulting engineer from the company B.P. Barber, said the landfill would be lined with a plastic liner and two feet of impervious clay that would keep any liquids from leaching out. Periodically, any liquid that collects at its base would be pumped for processing to neutralize any toxins. He also said the landfill would be engineered from the start for future gas production for electricity generation.

“No landfill of this class has ever had a leak,” Ron Gilbertson, one of MRR’s representatives, said Tuesday.

Williamsburg County Supervisor Stanley Pasley said the public/private cooperative agreement would mean the county would own the landfill, but the company would operate it at no cost to the county.