The Putnam County Commission postponed a decision on the proposed expansion of the Class Three Landfill in Baxter during its meeting Monday night.
Putnam County Mayor Randy Porter said the landfill, located on Cooper Church Road, currently handles construction waste, landscaping debris, and shredded tires rather than household garbage.
“Now your options are, is we’ve got to open the new cell,” Porter said. “We figure these cells will last at least 10 years unless we have another tornado or something like we did. But the only option is if we don’t do that, then the landfill has to shut down. We have nothing to do with the construction waste.”
Commissioner Stacye Choate said she received a detailed report regarding the expansion only recently and requested more time to study the documents. Choate said the commission should be prudent and allow for an extra 30 days to review the material intelligently.
“I’d like to have it on the record to actually review this 80 pages so that we can make a decision intelligently,” Choate said. “I would ask that we have it added minutes into the agenda for the next October meeting so that the community can see it in advance.”
The commission voted 14-9 to postpone the matter until the October meeting.
During a public hearing held before the commission session, Deborah Carlile said she lives in close proximity to the landfill and expressed concerns about environmental impacts. Carlile said she has observed red and green materials leaching into a nearby creek and raised questions about dust particles and potential fire risks from tire shredding.
“Water runs downhill, boys,” Carlile said. “So if you have a ground particulate from one of these facilities which are running and then rainwater, irrigation, just naturally runs and runs into the creek, then only that bit more heavy metals. Dust places can contain particles of zinc, lead, cadmium, and lithium from tire records and embedded steel fly.”
Jason Fletcher of Barge Design Solutions said the expansion request is only the beginning of a multi-year regulatory process. Fletcher said the site must undergo extensive investigations for groundwater and stream impacts before the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation considers issuing a permit.
“That process takes years to walk through to make sure we have all of that data and all those pieces collected over time, including groundwater to make sure nothing’s getting working inside,” Fletcher said. “And at the end of that, TDEC will decide whether or not they want to issue a draft permit, at which point in time there is an additional public hearing to go over the exact details of the footprint and all of the other mechanics and design problems that come up with inside how it was resolved.”
Porter said the county has already addressed some operational issues by hiring an emergency contractor to clean up the site. Monitoring wells are checked quarterly by the state, and the county has the authority to conduct surprise inspections at any time.
In other business, the commission elected David Andrews as the new Chairman of the County Commission and Danny Holmes as Chairman Pro Tem. The board also approved the sale of several surplus vehicles via public auction, including a 2002 GMC Sonoma and a 1988 Mack truck.
