Company Wants to Haul More Trash to Harper Co.

By Tim Potter, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.

Jan. 17–Some residents fear increased traffic, pollution

Some Harper County residents, already bitter about a regional landfill, are opposing a plan to bring more of Wichita’s trash to their county.

The opponents say the proposal would further threaten water sources and increase truck traffic.

Waste Connections, Wichita’s largest trash hauler, says increasing the amount of trash it can bury in Harper County could hold down trash bills. Now, trash that can’t be buried there has to be trucked 100 miles farther to a landfill near Enid, Okla.

The potential impact affects everyone from a Wichita resident who leaves trash at the curb to a Harper County farmer who worries that the landfill could pollute his water wells.

On one side is Waste Connections, which owns the Plumb Thicket Landfill in Harper County. The company wants to increase the county-imposed limit on trash from 2,000 to 3,500 tons a day of household, business and industrial waste from much of south-central Kansas, primarily Wichita.

The area’s most populous county already accounts for an average of 1,700 tons daily Monday through Friday, said Jim Spencer, divisional vice president with Waste Connections.

The amount of trash exceeds the cap about half of the year. From April through September, people are more active, which means more trash — a key part of which is grass clippings.

Now some Harper County residents like Sue Francis, who fought the establishment of a landfill before it opened two years ago, oppose opening the landfill to more trash.

Francis contends that the landfill sits too close to the Chikaskia River, a drinking-water source for towns downstream.

“Money is the object here, but it shouldn’t be. It should be concerns about the environment,” said Francis, a 67-year-old whose family has lived and farmed in Harper County for more than 100 years.

Francis, a leader in the anti-landfill fight, said she has documents showing that chemicals go into the landfill.

“There’s supposed to be a lining,” she said, “but all linings leak.”

Landfill leaking?

But Spencer, the Waste Connections official, said the landfill is carefully engineered “to protect the environment, not only now but into the future.”

The landfill has been built with a sophisticated system of liners including clay and plastic that have to be tested and certified against leakage, he said. Twenty-one groundwater monitoring wells surround the landfill.

“We can prove that we have not damaged the groundwater at all,” Spencer said.

What still makes Francis and other residents bitter is the spot where landfill was located.

“That’s probably the prettiest spot in the county — it was — as far as wildlife and grassland was concerned,” Francis said.

Indians used the grassy gullies to herd buffalo, said Jane Gardner, a Harper County farmer and another landfill opponent.

Part of the area where the landfill sits has been known by locals as Freeman’s Canyon. Boy Scouts camped out there. Springs lined hills where trash goes now, Gardner and Francis said.

But Spencer said that Freeman’s Canyon remains as a wildlife refuge.

“The landfill was specifically designed to stay away from Freeman’s Canyon. It hasn’t been disturbed and won’t be disturbed,” he said.

Under a state permit, the landfill sits on about 228 acres, within a 1,000-acre tract owned by Waste Connections that includes Freeman’s Canyon.

Source of county income

Michael Fergason, one of the Harper County commissioners, who have the final say on the cap proposal, said he senses that opposition to the landfill has diminished since it opened.

“I would say that the majority of the county is OK with it now,” Fergason said. “They’ve seen the checks that are coming in.”

Last year, the county received about $1.2 million from a landfill “tipping fee,” which haulers are charged for disposing of their trash, Fergason said. “It’s a big part of our budget.”

Last year the county’s budget was $8.5 million.

More trash could bring about $720,000 more a year, Spencer said.

Any revenue is inconsequential when compared to the environmental damage, Gardner and Francis say.

A city-county planning commission could vote on the cap proposal Feb. 12. After that, the issue goes to the County Commission.

More people, more trash

A wheat farmer who lives near the landfill said more trash is inevitable. He declined to give his name, he said, because differences over the landfill have “ruined a lot of friendships around this county.”

Whatever happens with the cap, the amount of trash will continue to rise as the south-central Kansas population grows, Spencer said.

The landfill receives trash from Sedgwick, Chautauqua, Cowley, Harper, Kingman and Sumner counties, part of Butler and Harvey counties and from scattered customers in northern Oklahoma, Spencer said.

One man who owns property near the landfill said he had initially opposed it but now considers the operator to be a good neighbor. Landfill crews have done a good job of collecting trash that has blown from the site, said the man, who declined to give his name.

Francis, the landfill opponent, said the operation has changed her approach to her own trash.

She said she’s determined to send as little as possible to the landfill.

“The only good thing that’s come out of this,” she said, “is I’ve learned to recycle.”

Contributing: Mike Hutmacher of The Eagle Reach Tim Potter at 316-268-6684 or tpotter@wichitaeagle.com.

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