Getting Trashed
Monday, October 31st, 2005
By Chris Fitzsimon
Winston-Salem Journal
North Carolinians may not want their state to become the East Coast’s newest landfill, but they probably can’t block the opening of five major new landfills proposed for the eastern and central parts of the state.
About the best that we can expect is that local, state and federal regulators do their jobs and vigorously enforce landfill site selection, design and construction laws. North Carolinians should also push for a new tax that makes outsiders pay at least some of the costs these landfills will bring to the state.
The five landfills, if all are built and opened, would transform North Carolina from a net exporter of trash to the fourth largest importer of trash in the country. That’s a huge shift in garbage trade, and it raises many environmental questions both for this state and our neighbors.
According to a report in The News & Observer of Raleigh, the Black Bear landfill, proposed for Camden County by Waste Industries, would receive 3 million tons of trash a year. That’s about one-third of the total trash North Carolinians dispose of each year. But, Black Bear, situated just below the Virginia border not far from the Virginia Beach area, would mostly serve as a trash-import facility for customers in the Northeast.
Each of the sites offers its own environmental challenges. Landfills can be extremely harmful to groundwater and flowing waters if they leak. Modern engineering has proved that landfills can be secure, but they must be designed and constructed well for that to happen. It will be the very important job of state and federal regulators to guarantee that all is right with the designs and construction. For the public to trust the federal government, in the wake of other federal mishaps such as post-Hurricane Katrina emergency management, will take an enormous leap of faith.
North Carolina has been singled out for new landfills for a number of reasons: cheap land, rural areas with few neighbors, a central location along the East Coast and low or nonexistent taxes. The General Assembly should look into that last matter. (more…)
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