Two weeks after a court ruling cleared the way for a Madison County landfill, parties on both sides of the debate remain unswayed.
On Dec. 8, a judge in Marion Superior Court Environmental Division affirmed a previous decision, effectively returning to JM Corp. its permit to create Mallard Lake Landfill.
Company officials say the path is finally cleared for Mallard Lake to become a reality. Opponents in the Killbuck Concerned Citizens Association (KCCA) have not given up hope.
“We really don’t believe that it will be over until we see that first load of trash come in,” said Sheryl Myers, president of the KCCA, an activist group formed in 1979. “We’re not willing to say it’s over. We don’t believe our legal options are exhausted.”
In 1978, JM Corp. announced plans to bring a landfill to Madison County. A year later, the company purchased a 154-acre farm at the corner of County Road 300 East and County Road 300 North in Richland Township. But the project has been mired in controversy and legal opposition for parts of four decades.
Two weeks ago, Judge Michael D. Keele ruled that an environmental law judge acted appropriately when she ordered the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) to reinstate JM Corp.’s permit renewal application and grant a time extension for information.
Myers said the KCCA will continue to raise money for a legal challenge and its campaign to influence public opinion.
She said JM Corp.’s proposal for an above-ground landfill should have never been approved by the Madison County Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA). On Nov. 2, 1979, Special Judge Alva Cox reversed the BZA’s decision and granted JM Corp.’s a special use for a trench landfill.
“We’re trying to shed more light on the facts,” Myers said. “For example, we still haven’t had the BZA verify all of this. The BZA still has not heard the merits of the current landfill design in a public forum. It’s never been submitted.”
Myers said the KCCA has a chili supper fundraiser in the works for the first quarter of 2007.
Meanwhile, JM Corp. founder Ralph Reed is in discussion with prospective buyers.
“We’re just going to sit back,” Reed said. “We’ve got it up for sale and we’ve got some people interested in it.”
Reed said JM Corp. is still talking with Consolidated Waste Industries Inc., the company that paid some of its permit costs. Regulations have changed since JM Corp. was granted its initial landfill permit. For example, Reed said Subtitle D regulations mean all landfills must have a liner.
In his decision, Keele wrote that JM Corp. was “... financially exhausted by IDEM’s unreasonable delay causing irreparable injury.”
“That should be it,” Reed said. “The remonstrators can’t do anything now. It’s over, finally. Once and for all.”
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