landfill

You don't have to take it folks. You don't have to stand by and watch bad things done in your communities. I just left a group of people who are a living testament to that fact.

Don't Dump on Us: Keep NC Healthy Tour

or not. That is the question facing Person County. We already have two large coal fired power plants in place in the northern part of the county; the Hyco lake plant is one of the most polluting power generating facilities in the country. We have a midsized commercial landfill in the southeast corner of the county that handles our trash and some trash from adjacent counties. We also have a Georgia-Pacific paper operation and a few lesser industries already in place.

I don't know why it's so hard to get both of our illustrious houses in the legislature lined up on the right side of important issues. We had a helluva fight keeping the special interests out of the Senate on the transfer tax, but now it's the House that's out of whack on the landfills issue.

The N&O has a good editorial that covers most of the important points.

Articles below the fold describe the recent convoluted legislative activities on landfill bills.

Please contact House Speaker Hackney and your local legislators to encourage solid Solid Waste reform - including environmental and financal safeguards, landfill footprint maximum size of 150 acres (not 350 acre mega-dumps promoted by industry), and funded mandates for recycling.

An update with the names of Conference Committee members will follow when available.

Congratulations to Cape Fear Citizens for a Safe Environment on stopping one of the proposed mega-dumps in NC! (See Cape Fear's website, www.stopthedump.com , to see if you think importing "auto fluff" from all over the world is "environmentally friendly").

One mega-dump down, four to go: Camden, Hyde, Columbus and Scotland. Veronica Carter of NC Conservation Network reminds us that:

"It isn't over until we pass legislation to ensure this doesn't happen to anyone in North Carolina again".

Below the fold, excerpts from an article in the Wilmington Star: www.starnewsonline.com

The Rally against Mega-Dumps in Laurinburg last night was a great success; and the BOC meeting afterwards, quite interesting. Below the fold is the write-up in the Fayetteville Observer under the headline: Tempers flair over landfill.

The Fayetteville Observer reporter left the meeting before the Board returned from closed session. The Laurinburg Exchange article adds:

"Several citizens were allowed to address Commissioners after the Board returned from closed session but [BOC Chair] Willis had not informed them they would have the chance to speak during the meeting when he initially closed the public forum".

Scotland County Of Tomorrow is sponsoring a Rally against mega-landfills on Monday, April 2nd, at 6:00 p.m., at 1404 West Boulevard, in Laurinburg, before a Commissioner's Meeting,
across the street at 7:00 p.m.
The SCOT website includes a map. www.nomegadump.org

The first landfill bill is expected next week, so this is a good time for a state wide Rally. If you are unable to attend, letters to the commissioners, to the editor, or to SCOT to be read at the Rally, would be appreciated. Contact information is on the website: www.nomegadump.org

Recent Scotland landfill activities below the fold:

The assault on our rural counties aimed at making them garbage receptacles for states all along the eastern seaboard, from Maine to Florida, that I started posting on months ago entered a new stage recently. Waste Management vying to be the ones granted the right to dump other states' trash in our impoverished rural south has opened up a local disinformation shop , Scotland County dedicated to convincing local citizens that they really do want to turn their part of the state into one big megadump. The worst part about this current assault is the blatant distorting of the truth to make it seem like landfills are good for the environment and other such nonsense; these claims are the current version of "clean skies" for let's pollute more and "healthy forests" for let's chop down as many trees as we can.