Commissioners Hold Public Hearing On Landfill Expansion

The first action item on last night's Bertie County Commissioners meeting was a Public Hearing on the need to expand our county landfill. As noted by Jim Hoggard, representing the organization "Mayors and Commissioners of Bertie County", the current landfill contract saves the taxpayers of Bertie County 17 cents per dollar on our tax rate. That is a significant saving and serves our county well. Of the 8 towns represented in the organization, 6 have already endorsed the planned expansion and one was meeting last night at the same time as the Public Hearing with the expectation that they would also approve.




The first presentation on the issue was by Drew Isenhour (shown below), Area President of Republic Services of NC, current contract holder on the landfill operation.




Mr. Isenhour spoke about the contract, the process by which the landfill expansion had been researched to adhere to state rules, and the next steps to move the process forward.

The next presentation was by Bill Hodges, (shown below) Professional Engineer from Hodges, Harbin, Newberry & Tribble, Inc.





Mr Hodges provided details and maps of the various sites that were considered. He explained why most of the numerous sites were rejected, and then compared some of the issues of the 5 sites that were finalists in the process. He explained why they recommended Bertie County select expansion of the current landfill site as the best option for Bertie County.

If you click on the title above, you will be taken to the Bertie County web site page which allows for a download of the details of the study. It is a very large download but provides significant details, including maps, for each of the sites considered.

A primary focus of discussion lst night was the issue of mediation of road damage and litter for the citizens who live in the immediate area of the landfill or have to use the roads in the area on a regular basis. Since the county and our towns are benefitting from the landfill economically, to be fair we need to make sure that these citizens are not unfairly burdened with potholes and litter. At present that is a concern.

There was some discussion about the possiblity of getting matching funds from the State of North Carolina if some money was set aside to mediate the issue of potholes.

There was also discussion about the possibility of the new contract specifying more agressive cleanup efforts for the roads in the area to alleviate current litter problems.

A team of negotiators to represent county interests was appointed to start working with Republic Services of NC on the specifics of the new contract, incuding addressing these mediation efforts. The Bertie County team will be composed of Commissioner Norman Cherry, Commisioner Wallace Perry, County Manager Zee Lamb and County Attorney Lloyd Smith.

They will present any proposed contract at a future meeting of the County Commissioners. It was noted that there will be at least two more meetings on the landfill expansion before any contract can be approved.