Landfill: The Rest of The Story
By Alex Saitta
March 6, 2024
The director of solid waste is doing a very good job with the situation he inherited. My issue is with the string of county council decisions and money spent the past 10 years to get to the point.
With government, most of the time, you don’t get this whole story, so let me tell you the rest of the story…
The History:
In 2014 the county landfill was filling up, so the county took preliminary steps to close the landfill and announced it was getting out of the landfill business. That plan to close the landfill was going to cost $2 to $3 million.
Going forward, the county contracted with a private company (MRR) to dump county waste in MRR’s landfill. MRR bought over 400 acres in Liberty and planned to open a landfill there.
MRR working with DHEC then aimed to put coal ash in that landfill too. The county got wind of this and claimed this would violate the contract and state regulations, so the county yanked MRR’s landfill construction permit. The county felt it was in the right, but the legal case was going to tie up the landfill deal in court for years.
The county needed a new long-term plan, which was to truck its waste to Greenville. I remember them saying, we are now “in the trucking business,” proud of the latest, greatest idea. The council spent oodles of money on tractors and trailers, built a loading station, spent all this money up on the hill for sorting this and that.
About 2 years, the administration told the council it was too expensive to run all those trucks. In a 180 degree turn we were then told it was best to settle with MRR, shell out $7 million on that settlement and use their landfill. I voted “No” on that because we were told for years by the county it had a winning case and they would take it to final victorious resolution. Also, part of that settlement was the county paid $3.5 million for 94 acres MRR had bought in Liberty, but only paid about $350,000 for.
Three months later, there was another turn as the administration felt MRR would charge too much in fees to use their landfill. Their next solution was to spend about $6 million so far to resurrect the old county landfill.
Conclusion:
The landfill plan has gone from closing the county landfill, to using MRR’s landfill, to trucking, back to MRR again and now resurrecting the county landfill, laying out about $10 to $15 million in this big circle to “save money” that took the county right back to the start -- using county landfill as the solution.
Someone needs to watch out for the taxpayers and be there to tell the public the entire story on these county council issues.
MRR Deal:
The MRR settlement was not a big win as you were told. I voted “No” on the settlement. MRR took the county to the cleaners on that one.
1) The county told us for 6 years it had a great case. MRR was wrong to try and put coal ash in the landfill. It had the case won, then suddenly they wanted to settle and the county had to pay out big. Huh? We’ll never know the truth on that one.
2) As part of the settlement, the county paid MRR $3.5 million for 94 acres that MRR paid $350,000 for. I didn’t see much value or use for the land either. The council also shelled out $3 million to MRR (an interest free loan) to construct and open the landfill, one the county would not even use.
3) Finally, if the county was going to settle and pay all that out, then get the landfill as part of the deal. The county needed a landfill as our landfill was filling up. Nope. Instead the county is spending millions more to keep open its old landfill open.
Post Script:
Now here is the kicker on why I wanted to wait on the decision the sink so much money into resurrecting the old county landfill. According to the MRR settlement, MRR has to finish the construction of their landfill in Liberty by May 3, 2023 or they start to face $10,000 fines each month, with those fines rising $10,000 for each successive month the landfill is not complete. Then they have to sell the landfill or face annual fines of $500,000 that grow as well. What happens if MRR is not able to do this and they offer the county their new never used landfill? With that be part of yet another new long-term solution?
Sometimes it is best to just do nothing and wait and see, and let the MRR situation to reach its conclusion.
