About 25 residents of the Coal City area turned out at last Thursday day night’s public hearing to express their opposition to a permit application to expand the Cedar Hill landfill.The Alabama Department of Environmental Management set the public hearing to allow oral and written public statements regarding permit application 58-01 made by Veolia Environmental Services proposing a 331-acre expansion of the landfill.
St. Clair County Commissioner Paul Manning, the only commissioner to attend the hearing, again asked ADEM officials to reconsider rescheduling the hearing. Jonathan Crosby of ADEM’s land management division said the commission’s request was taken into consideration but since notifications had already been made and posted the hearing would proceed.
Coal City resident Linton Williams spoke first regarding his opposition to the proposed expansion.
“I am the landowner most affected by this,” he said. “About 2,500 square feet of my property borders the landfill property.”
Williams argued that proper procedures, according to law, had not been followed in regard to the public hearing or the local approval of the permit.
“This is a good example of how not to do it,” he said.
Williams’ argument against the proposed expansion ranged from procedure inaccuracies to the absence of local approval, which ADEM claims was given.
“In March 2005 the County Commission said it had not given local approval,” Williams said. “ADEM said it was. I have gone to great lengths to review minutes and ADEM notes and records and I can’t find where an expansion was addressed at a public hearing.”
Williams said expansion of the landfill was never mentioned during a 1994 public hearing at which the County Commission took no action.
“ADEM claims local inaction meant automatic approval,” he said.
Veolia ES general counsel Jim Noles also told Williams and others that property Veolia owns abutting Wattsville Drive would not be used as a secondary entrance to the landfill.
“The current access to the landfill is on No Business Creek Road. That would continue to be the only access. The company has no intention of using that property,” he said.
Williams also expressed concern about environmental issues such as the landfill’s proximity to wetlands and Suck Creek to the west and Broken Arrow Creek to the south.
“There are wetlands in the permit area and we want to know what precautions are being taken to not disturb them,’ he said.
Third generation farmer and landowner Jim Tollison Jr. also expressed concerns with environmental issues, especially the chance of water contamination.
“The property they want to expand on is riddled with strip mines and sinkholes,” he said. “They’re on our property and have opened up beneath our tractor. What do they think is going to happen when they start moving heavy equipment around out there?
“We’re on well water here and I’m afraid to build a home there because of what may be in the water supply. It’s one thing to not like it, it’s another to be afraid of it.”
Tollison also said he hoped ADEM and Veolia would review their maps and plans before issuing the permit because of what he says are inaccuracies.
“This map shows my family owns a big piece of property we don’t,” he said. “If they couldn’t catch that, then what else is being missed.”
Each speaker in opposition to the permit also supported the County Commission’s position that the property in question is not adjoining the existing landfill site but is a whole different site.
“This permit application states this is an expansion,” Tollison said. “According to the map, this is a whole different site.”
Maps presented by Tollison show about a quarter-mile distance between the proposed expansion property and the existing landfill site.
Despite the opportunity to express their opinions, residents were disheartened by ADEM’s preliminary approval of the permit application.
Crosby said the agency had already issued preliminary approval of the application with stipulations that there would be liners in the cells, groundwater would be tested semi-annually, there would be monitoring of explosive gases and the company would obtain ADEM permits for any changes or modifications that may violate the existing permit. The permit would also only be good for five years at a time.
Crosby also said the land management division could only consider environmental impact issues when reviewing a permit application.
“The land division can only consider technical comments addressing the environmental impacts, not transportation or socio-economic issues,” he said.
Crosby said he wasn’t sure how long it would take to make a final determination on the permit application.
“That will all depend on what happens in the next seven days,” he said. “It depends on how many oral and written comments we have to review and consider.”
Written comments concerning the expansion permit could be submitted to ADEM until 5 p.m. Dec. 28 and must offer technically substantial information that is applicable to the proposed permit.
