In 2001, New York City closed its Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island, where for more than 50 years most of its garbage had been buried.
Shut off from a near by site for its wastes, New York has had to export most of the 20,000 tons of trash it produces each day.
For the years that followed, much of that wound up in Pennsylvania landfills. But, fed up with the onslaught, the Keystone State is cracking down on waste imports by delaying or denying permits for major site expansions and closing existing sites.
Now the New York City Department of Sanitation is negotiating 20-year contracts to dump New York City garbage outside of New York.
As a result, in the last year, North Carolina has been put in the cross-hairs of Waste Management and the other waste giants who want to cash in on New York's problem by hauling away it's garbage to far away dumps in North Carolina, Virginia, and other states.
Six counties in North Carolina are immediately affected by a variety of proposals, but it is vital to understand that all of us will soon be impacted as well. Scroll down or click here to view a map of the proposed locations.
Everyone understands that landfills bring noxious odors, and hundreds of semi-trucks crowding roads to the local communities.
Some understand that the barriers used ostensibly to protect the environment will inevitably deteriorate over time, often contaminating drinking water supplies. Many of the Superfund sites in the U.S. are failed landfills from the 1980's, many of which, at the time, were boasted to be "state-of-the-art."
Few, however, recognize the entirely new threat that the new generation of mega-sized dumps poses. Hundreds of feet high, with tens of millions of tons of toxic laced garbage and other wastes held back behind two feet of packed dirt and a plastic sheet, mega-fills are at risk of crashing down in massive landslides.
In fact, one such catastrophic failure has already occurred in 1996 near Cincinnati. As reported in Waste News: "March 9, 1996, was a watershed date in the history of the Rumpke Sanitary landfill, 12 miles northwest of Cincinnati in Colerain Township, That's the day a massive portion of the landfill - known to locals as Mount Rumpke - collapsed as employees literally ran for their lives...."For [Jim] King, landfill operations manager, instinct kicked in as he and about seven other workers ran for cover when the hill collapsed that Saturday morning. 'As I was running down the hill, I was hollering,' he said. 'I told everybody, Run for their lives. ...Cracks were coming underneath my feet. It was like an earthquake.'"
Fortuitously, the landslide at Rumpke occurred on the inside working face of the landfill, but next time we cannot count on being so lucky.
The disaster at Rumpke is particularly troubling since it occurred at a time when the landfill was still operating and under active management. This has lead some in the industry to fear what might happen after these mega-dumps are closed and companies walk away after 30 years leaving a mess for members of the public - like the citizens of North Carolina - to pay to clean up.
Closer to home, in January 2005 Waste Management's recently closed Piedmont Landfill in Forsyth County lost eight acres of its protective cap when it slid off in a "dumpslide." The cause of this failure remains undetermined.
Cleaning up such a disaster in North Carolina could well cost between $50 - $100 per ton - potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in total at each site that fails. This will result in billions of dollars in tax increases to pay for the cost of the clean up. We can be quite sure that, when this happens, Waste Management and the other interlopers will be nowhere around.
Here are the current locations of proposed landfills. But, if we don't stand up today, we can be well assured that more will follow. No one will be safe.
Click on the garbage cans for the county and owner of each location. Click here to view a larger version.
Camden County: Waste Industries, Inc. (Black Bear Disposal LLC)
Waste Stream: municipal solid waste, industrial waste and C&D waste
Service Area: United States east of I-75
Projected Volume: 3,650,000 tons per year (10,000 tons per day)
Transportation: Container barges to Virginia and trucks to Camden County
Natural Areas: Dismal Swamp State Natural Area and Dismal Swamp NWR
Hyde County: D. H. Griffin/Alligator River Recycling
Waste Stream: construction and demolition waste
Service Area: East Coast
Projected Volume: 900,000 tons per year before recycling
Transportation: Barges via the Intra-Coastal Waterway
Natural Areas: Seven miles from the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge
Brunswick County: Sims-Hugo Neu Corporation (North Carolina Recycling LLC)
Waste Stream: automobile and appliance shredder residue, C&D waste
Service Area: United States
Projected Volume: 2,000,000 tons per year
Transportation: Barges to Wilmington, truck to Brunswick County
Natural Areas: Impacts 30 acres of wetlands and 5320 feet of Indian Creek
Columbus County: Waste Management, Inc. (Riegel Ridge LLC)
Waste Stream: municipal solid waste and special waste
Service Area: 100-mile radius including 13 South Carolina counties
Projected Volume: 500,000 tons per year
Transportation: trucks
Natural Area: Adjoins the Nature Conservancy's Juniper Creek property and seven miles from Lake Waccamaw State Park
Scotland County: Waste Management, Inc. or Republic Waste Services
Waste Stream: municipal solid waste and special waste
Service Area: North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and Florida
Projected Volume: 1,825,000 tons per year (5000 tons per day)
Transportation: trucks
Natural Areas: the actual site is undisclosed until after contracts are signed.
Richmond County: Waste Management, Inc.
Waste Stream: municipal solid waste and special waste
Service Area: North Carolina plus the area within 300 miles of Richmond County
Projected Volume: 1,825,000 tons per year (5000 tons per day)
Transportation: trucks
Natural Area: the actual site is undisclosed until after contracts are signed.
You can tell Waste Management and the other solid waste companies that you don't want New York City garbage dumped in North Carolina, but they are not listening-they're negotiating waste deals. In New York City they are negotiating long-term contracts with the Department of Sanitation. In North Carolina they are negotiating franchise agreements with county governments. Other companies are working on dumps for demolition waste and the waste from shredders. All of the dumps proposed for North Carolina will receive waste from outside the state!
