Basnight urges calming period on landfills
Monday, May 29th, 2006
By Chris Fitzsimon
By DAVID MACAULAY
North Carolina needs "a quieting-down period" to study landfills and their impacts before any more private garbage sites in the state are approved, the state Senate’s top leader said Friday.
That’s why Sen. Marc Basnight, D-Dare, says he included a proposed year-and-half moratorium on landfill permits in the Senate’s $18.8 billion spending proposal for next year.
Under the proposal, which the Senate approved Thursday, the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources would be prohibited from accepting any new applications for landfills or issuing any new landfill permits from July 1 to Jan. 1, 2008.
Basnight, the president pro tempore of the Senate, acknowledged seeking the moratorium out of concern about the giant Black Bear Landfill proposed for Camden County.
Basnight, whose Senate district includes Camden, said he’s concerned that the landfill, which is proposed for a site near South Mills and could accept garbage from as many as 20 states, could be damaging not just for the county but for the entire state.
"I’m not aware of a landfill this large anywhere," said Basnight. "We do need to raise questions about something this size. We have to ask how much larger this is than anything that’s ever been experienced before in the history of this state."
Basnight also has worries about the state being targeted by waste companies for giant landfills. In addition to the site in Camden, landfills are also under state review in Hyde, Columbus, Brunswick and Richmond counties.
"I wouldn’t want to see North Carolina becoming the waste capital of the East Coast," Basnight said.
The Senate leader says a moratorium – which still must be approved by the state House and governor before it can take effect – "would give more time and provide a quietening-down period so as we can review the whole issue of landfills."
The wide-ranging study of landfills and solid waste would be carried out by the Environmental Review Commission, with the assistance of DENR’s Division of Waste Management, Basnight said. (more…)
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