By RALPH REED
Regarding a recent article published in The Herald Bulletin about the cost of trash pickup in the city, as a matter of information, City Attorney Tim Lanane has been fighting the Mallard Lake Landfill for several years. J.M. Corporation was close to being issued a renewal of its landfill permit, issued by Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM), when Sen. Lanane and state Reps. Terri Austin, Scott Reske and Jack Lutz added an amendment intended to affect only one landfill site in Indiana — Mallard Lake Landfill. According to the newspaper article, the city was considering an $8.50 monthly trash pickup charge to residents.
You may be interested to know the facts: 1) Each year that the landfill has not operated has caused the county to lose the benefit of at least seven high-paying jobs; the annual loss in real estate taxes has been in the thousands of dollars; and taxpayers have incurred annual expense for extra costs in hauling waste miles from this community. In 2006, approximately 180,000 tons of waste were hauled from Madison County, with approximately 65,000 tons from the city of Anderson. Conservatively speaking, Madison County taxpayers have lost more than $20 million over the last 20 years and such costs will continue at over $2 million each year of delay. 2) J.M. has been irreparably harmed due to improper political legislation, the conduct of IDEM and remonstrators and deliberately false information provided to and accepted by local authorities and the media. This has been confirmed by two lower court judges and two appellate decisions favoring J.M. The most recent publicized legislation is another ineffective and unlawful attempt to pass special and retroactive legislation to further harm J.M., deprive it of equal protection of the law, deny it due process and take or interfere with its property rights.
State legislators who represent Anderson and Madison County should not be instrumental in enacting legislation that costs their constituency millions of tax dollars to haul waste out of Madison County. It cannot be proper for Sen. Lanane, who is an employee representing the city of Anderson, to cause legislation that costs the city and its taxpayers $780,000 annually.
Mallard Lake has been properly granted special exception approval as a landfill and the need for such a facility as a matter of public policy has been established. These facts have never changed. All of the alleged reasons raised in opposition to the landfill have been established as either false or nonexistent. The minutes of meeting IDEM held at the Anderson Public Library to inform the public on Mallard Lake, include a quotation from IDEM’s geologist that Mallard Lake requirements were more protective of the environment than required by IDEM or the federal government.
If you would like more facts about Mallard Lake, we would be pleased to furnish them. The real facts are documented in the evidentiary hearings, geological reports, testimony of creditable experts and court findings.
Ralph Reed is secretary-treasurer of J.M. Corporation in Anderson.
