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Tiny Town Files Suit Against Giant Dump; Developers Toss Words At Escambia, Florida
March 4, 2011
A town of less than 300 people has filed suit to stop a mega-landfill planned just upstream from North Escambia, just as the landfill company has taken aim at three area counties, including Escambia, Florida.
Repton, Ala., population 280, filed suit this week against Conecuh Woods LLC and the Conecuh County (Ala.) Commission in an attempt to stop a permit from being issued for the 5,100 acre landfill planned for just outside the tiny town.
Numerous counties and cities in the area have passed resolutions against the landfill forwarded to Conecuh commissioners and Alabama’s governor — including Escambia counties in Alabama and Florida, Baldwin County, Century, Atmore and Flomaton.
Now, Conecuh Woods has fired back at three of counties against the landfill, throwing verbal jabs. On the Conecuh Woods website, the company says Escambia County, Florida is against the mega-landfill because “They already have a landfill and a Green Energy facility, and the last thing they want is competition for new industry”. The developer also alleges that Escambia and Baldwin counties in Alabama are against Conecuh Woods because their are landfill operating in their counties, and they don’t want the competition.
Escambia County, Florida, in opposing the landfill by resolution, expressed concerns over runoff that could pollute waterways downstream in Florida.
Conecuh Woods’ landfill, would include a 1,600 acre “disposal cell” from Range to Repton to near the Big Escambia Creek. Big Escambia Creek flows southward into Escambia County, Alabama, through Flomaton and drains through a North Escambia swamp into the Escambia River and then Escambia Bay.
Located only about 30 miles from the landfill site, the Town of Century joined Escambia County in opposing the landfill over water quality concerns.
“Nobody knows more than we do that Florida’s rules on water quality are tougher than Alabama’s,” Century Mayor Freddie McCall said. “If it comes into our river, Florida is in trouble immediately.”
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley issued an executive order providing for a moratorium on new landfills in the state. Conecuh County then, in turn, requested an opinion from Alabama’s attorney general on any impact on Conecuh Wood’s pending application before the commission.
A public hearing for the Conecuh County Commission to consider approval for Conecuh Woods is set for next Thursda, March 10, 9 a.m., at Reid State Technical College in Evergreen. The commission has until April 2 to make a decision on the proposal — if the governor’s moratorium does not stop the process.
Meanwhile, Conecuh Woods, LLC has listed numerous jobs and provided an employment application on the company’s website. The website asserts that the landfill’s annual payroll will be $1.8 million annually, with over $250 million in new revenues.
“This project is about jobs, revenue and who gets them; Conecuh, or some other county,” the website states.
Pictured top: Repton, Alabama, Mayor Terri Carter addresses the Century Town Council recently in opposition to a proposed 5,100 acre landfill in Conecuh County, Alabama. NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
Comments
31 Responses to “Tiny Town Files Suit Against Giant Dump; Developers Toss Words At Escambia, Florida”
fred i like the way you think buddie.
what the heck. a big adeiu about simple things. throw your trash out on the roadside like everyone else does.
Just An Old Soldier
Tell’em like it is!!!!
You know, the more I sit here and think about this whole Garbage problem, the more I realize that there is a real simple solution.
The key to this can be better management of the Garbage by the Homeowners themselves.
We all know that a lot of people will throw everything but the Kitchen Sink in their Garbage containers.
And if they replace a Glass Sink, they would probably throw it in there because Glass is one of the biggest problems with Household Garbage disposal.
Why can’t there be a Glass recycling business?
If we could do this how much smaller would these landfills be?
Metal objects: Bean cans, peach cans, Ham cans and such are all Recycling Items.
Go down to the Dollar Store and buy a container just to put your metal cans in.
When it is full, if you don’t want to take it to the Scrape yard yourself, Just put it beside the road with a sign, “free metal” and I can assure you it won’t be there long.
NOTE: Be sure to not buy a metal container, they’ll steal it for scrape.
Plastic objects: I don’t know the status of the Plastic Recycling Industry, but I’m sure it could be Improved to handle Plastics in Household Garbage.
Well this would bring us down to paper items and general food scrapes to bury in the Landfills.
But lets do something with this bacteria creating substance before we bury it in our good Earth.
If you have ever been to a landfill, you know what I mean, the smell will take your breath.
The smell is bacteria and gas created by the mulch Garbage.
We have smelters that melt metal for compact recycling.
Why can’t we have a large Incinerator to cook this mulch to an ash before we bury it in our good soil, now that we have removed the Plastic items that would create pollution.
And the buried ash would take bad soil and convert it to organic soil over a period of years.
Now see how easy this problem is to solve.
Much ado about nothing.
Lets set a goal for this and set an example for the rest of this Nation.
“united we stand divided we fall” i don’t know who said that but it is a good saying.
For those that want the jobs and will tolerate Other People’s Garbage, if I give you a dollar, can I dump my garbage in your living room? That is, until it fills up. Then after that, how about your bedroom?
If I give you $10, will you accept toxic waste? From New York City? Philly? Chicago? Peking?
Some things are worth more than just money – like clean water. Asking someone to bury their trash upstream for a few dollars seems a bit insane to me. Especially when it’s from cities far from where it’s produced.
Seems like there’s lots of land out west called “desert” that might be more suitable and less impacting on the fresh water tables.
This is something that affects everyone. I remember Love Canal. I remember driving past ghost towns that were once thriving communities and are now ghost towns as Super Fund toxic sites. You really DON’T want that to happen here.
Doesn’t really matter if you’re retired, working, or unemployed and on or off the dole – POISON is an equal opportunity killer. This area has enough old toxic sites and problems without adding more new ones to them.
Leija:
The hearing starts at 9 am. My suggestion was a massing of cars in Flomaton to make a convoy for the 45 minute trip to Evergreen.
Hurricane park’s parking lot (Hwy 31 just west of the high school, turn right beyond the tennis courts) is the only safe area I can think of to meet for that. 7:45 or 8 am would be a good time to gather. This would be a TOLG (Task Oriented Leaderless Group).
@Thinker
Could you please provide more details…time, etc. for the Flomaton meet up on 10MAR?
My Outlook on this issue is that, the disposal of Garbage shouldn’t be a Federal issue, nor a State issue, other than staying within the bounds of the EPA.
Disposal of Garbage should be a County issue in all States.
Any Metropolis cities that have over populated to a point they have more Garbage than they can dispose of, has had County Commissioners over the years that have not done their job, by setting enough land aside for their Landfills.
It has taken these Cities many decades to grow to the populations they have.
There has been plenty of time to prepare for the disposal of their Garbage and the only excuse for this problem is Neglect (alias: “being stupid”).
One thing is for sure, it’s not the state of Alabama and Florida’s problem.
I suggest they tear down a few of those skyscrapers in these Cities and dig some holes where they were to put their Garbage in (TIP: make sure you put plastic in the hole so it won’t contaminate your water).
I understand that these Metropolis cities are willing to pay for the Slackens of their past County Mappers, but some things are not for sale.
For example, the purity of the water system in Alabama and Northwest Florida, is not for sale at any price.
Conecuh Woods llc needs to learn this.
They need to understand that we take a lot of pride in our waterways, and this thing is gonna get real nasty if they persist.
We were threatened by BP’s oil spill less than a year ago downstream, now we’re threatened upstream by this.
What a thorn in the Buttocks?
“Does ever one in this area have jobs or are they are all retired.”
I try to imagine what it is that you are saying, and can only conclude
that you see opposition to this as some kind of slight on those who
seek employment?
So… just so I am clear on this, please tell me. Do you think it is
worth it for a few minimum wage jobs to poison the water supply
for thousands (or tens of thousands?) of people for a century or more?
I sure hope that is not what you are saying…
Good for you Repton!!! Remember “David and Goliath”!!!
Does ever one in this area have jobs or are they are all retired.
i know those extra jobs sound great. but you dont realize how rich you are just with the access to clean water this region has. if anyone owns artesion water in this region you are wealthy. hang on to your water rights. very soon people will come knocking at your door or your younguns door for water. protect that. that being siad, what about attracting businesses to the area that want to partner up with conservation minded communities (like north and south escambia counties). heck, you never know, the way the rest of the country is going, the emerald coast counties may be an eco-tourism vacation hotspot in the very near future. but it is going to take everyone together to git ‘er done.
I guess that the area does not need the jobs that something like this will generate. There are so many regulations that will have to be meet to keep the dump operational that the run off will be minimal. I don’t see anyone protesting the existing dump sites for the same reason that this site is being protested for.
I guess everyone likes having to ask for Obama handouts.
This did not just start over night. I own property in Conecuh County and have been to meetings a couple of years back when we thought we had them beaten back. But not so, they seem to now have the commissioners in their back pockets. Who knows the truth anymore we have been told so many different things. This is not about money on labor and revenue for the state, county or city. It’s about money in their pockets by developing the largest landfill in the U.S.. With that said we will be taking on trash from all over the u. S. or the world like China who has a serious problem with trash. Again this is about money. Who do you think is going to get stuck with the clean up if it leaks, who do you think will have to maintain the roads and the other parts that they will use. I know us the tax payer all for their gain and our ruin. These guys know exactly what they are doing.
So good for Repton for filing the law suit and the Govenor for what he has done. Maybe the little guy will win this one.
They said, “They already have a landfill and a Green Energy facility, and the last thing they want is competition for new industry”. Obviously they just don’t get it. They’re as delusional as Gadhafi of Libya.
Love Canal. Remember that? How many children and adults suffered and died of cancers from corporations acting in the interest of money alone and not health and welfare? The law allows for the use of deadly force in defending yourself against an overt threat of bodily harm, death, etc. I know the law wouldn’t protect the citizens outraged at Conecuh Woods if violence was used to stop this dump.. (we could change that) …but if legal battles and protests have no effect, then what? Do we just let our children and grandchildren suffer and die from “unknown” agents in our water, air and food? Let’s get together in Flomaton March 10th for a cavalcade of vehicles to the site of the public hearing. It needs to be a major media event.
“They already have a landfill and a Green Energy facility, and the last thing they want is competition for new industry”.
No, the LAST THING we want is toxic garbage brought down from New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and all the other socialist northern states to be sent down here to POISON and PUNISH us.
The waste you dump up there has a down stream effect greatly amplified over what we produce on our own – the land fills the Limited Liability Corporation cites our the ones that take care of the waste produced in our counties, not imported from the north.
This is just too much!
They are so worried about their water here that they were going to charge us to
inspect our septic systems.
I guess the water is just fine now and we can build a dump and it will be fine then also.
GREEN and the GREEN is MONEY!
From Santa Rosa county FL, what can I do to support the denial of this company and landfill plan?
Trying to play on how much revenue and employment this landfill will bring does not impress me. Polluting the many valuable watersheds in our great area is a disaster.
If someone can give me a direction to head in I would greatly appreciate it! Let’s help support our whole region! State and county lines don’t matter here. TIA!
Competition? Who in the heck wants to compete for a garbage dump?
I think that “name required” is absolutely correct.. Today, I am going to gather every email address, every physical address, and all other contact information on all parties concerned, as well as the time and place of any meetings or protests regarding this issue.. Name required is also correct in that if everyone emails and/or contacts the parties concerned, they will have to pay attention!
We really need to figure out what we can do together to fight this thing.
Typing a few words on the internet is not going to help much… writing
a letter to your representatives is better….
William, PLEASE let us know of any protests we might be able to be a
part of. Thanks for the excellent reporting thus far.
In this part of the country, we are capable of handling our own garbage on a very small scale.. We do not need this MEGA DUMP!! The people in large metropolitan areas and other states will be sending their trash to us!! Trash will be trucked in from hundreds if not thousands of miles away to be dumped on us.. Next time you are north of Brewton on hwy 41 at the Conecuh county line, just look at the MOUNTAIN OF REFUSE at the existing landfill which is a small fraction the size of the one proposed.. This “trash mountain” is probably the higest point in South Alabama, and it’s still rising..
Why don’t you post the water quaility results from the dump on the Escambia Conecuh county line. The liner is already leaking into the gound water there. Soon the people in the area will have to have bottled water.That will include all of you down stream of the dump all the way to Florida.
Check out the Superfund sites on the web (we have/had several site on this list). We really don’t need this type of industry of this size in our area. I might be wrong, but I think I read, this site if approved it would bring garbage from all over the United States?
The letters LLC behind theiir name tells us all we need to know.
Sirs, What will happen to the water in the water in the aquifer when all the garbage leaks donw into it ? This landfill cannot happen! Private companies all over the country from minng to manufacturing have polluted the places where they were located and then left or went out of business leaving the state and the federal governments to clean up after them.
Say NO to this future environmental disaster before you have no water and have you and your children sick for life ! !
of course they are going to dangle the carrot! but think of the future for our kids that will be making this area their home 10, 15, 20 years from now…our grandbabies! protect our watersheds and aquifers. they are so very very valuable. and conecuh woods llc made a good point. we already got plenty of landfills! they say they are going to do this and that and the other, i dont trust them as far as i can throw them! instead of building a landfill where people from out of state, out of this part of the country is going to be sending their garbage, why not build a recycling center. that would create jobs and be good for the economy, now and long into the future.
No dump!!
Keep up the good fight! Don’t let the moneyed interests run roughshod over folks’ well-being & environmental safety.
Erma Bombeck: “The Grass is Greener over the Septic Tank”.
Conecuh Woods wants us to believe it’s Greener over a Landfill.
MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!!!!!!!
We should be ashamed of ourselves, trying to deny them of their money making scheme.