U’town mayor stays out of garbage debate
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Uniontown Mayor Phillip White doesn’t care a thing about getting caught in the political hubbub over a landfill that could be built near his city.
That won’t be the case for a number of other Perry County residents on Thursday. Beginning at 6 p.m., citizens in Perry County will take part in a public hearing with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management at R.C. Hatch High School. The hearing will be the final chance for citizens to talk about a proposed landfill that would be built east of the Uniontown city limits.
White, who won’t formally endorse or oppose the landfill issue, does plan to attend the public hearing at R.C. Hatch.
Personally, White believes the issue has been strewn into a web of misinformation. For instance, some opponents of the landfill have claimed Perry County Associates has chosen a site for the landfill that sits on an old slave cemetery.
If White does have a leaning on the landfill, it apparently is in support of the economic project.
Perry County Associates, a company that will build the landfill, has requested a maximum permit that would allow for 7,500 tons of garbage to be dumped at the site every day. Perry County Commission Chairman Johnny Lee Flowers said it’s unrealistic to think the site will ever receive that much garbage in any one day, adding that a similar landfill in South Carolina has operated for 20 years receives 1,500 tons a day.
However, opponents of the landfill fear toxins from garbage, along with an increased danger of drinking water, are some of the problems associated with the landfill.