Response from the community in regards to increasing the capacity of the landfill in Logan County hasn’t been as fruitful as the county expected.

Logan County Judge/Executive Logan Chick said he has only heard from a few citizens since last Tuesday’s Fiscal Court meeting, but did say he believes the magistrates have heard a little more.

Last week representatives of Waste Management, the company which operates of the landfill, approached Fiscal Court asking to amend the host agreement between the company and county to allow additional waste to be hauled to the dump within a five-year period. Magistrates tabled the decision until the Nov. 24th meeting, allowing time for citizens to chime in with their thoughts.

Landfill operations director Charlie Gillian told the court last week that negotiations to continue leasing the property the landfill sits on have failed with the owner thus Waste Management will be capping up the landfill and leaving by June 2015.

Gillian told the court it was Waste Management's desire to fill up the landfill to its 3.3 million tons as regulated by the state. Under the current Host agreement Waste Management can only bring in 1,150 tons a day, which would leave 1.6 million tons shy of the 3.3 million by June 2015.

Gillian told the court if the county would amend the agreement and allow Waste Management to being in more waste within the five year period to accomplish the 3.3 million tons (filling it up) they would pay the county $1.6 million to do so.

Sixth District Magistrate Thomas Bouldin said he wanted to hear from the citizens of Logan County before he made his decision. First District Magistrate Dickie Carter said he didn’t even like the dump being in Logan County. The landfill is in Carter’s district.

Although Logan County gets paid a percentage of the landfill’s annual profits it does not; however, do its waste business with Waste Management nor does the county’s trash go to the local landfill. Logan County chose Scott Waste in March 2006 as its waste service provider. That company transports Logan’s trash to Ohio County. The cities of Auburn, Adairville and Lewisburg are also serviced by Scott Waste.

The City of Russellville’s waste; however, does end up in the landfill. Russellville entered into a five-year agreement with Waste Management in 2005. The city received $57,496 for the current fiscal year from Waste Management for wear and tear on the city’s streets caused by trash trucks and for administering the billing for residential customers.

“Our contract with Waste Management is up next year. We will be looking at all aspects of the decision at that time,” said Russellville Mayor Gene Zick.

Zick said he believes people need to become serious about recycling.

“We all throw too much away and don’t think about where it ends up. It has to go somewhere and that is why there are landfills like the one in Logan County. People need to maximize their recycling efforts to minimize the amount of waste that ends up in landfills,” said Zick.

Although Zick feels strongly about recycling, he does feel the landfill since already there should maximize capacity.

“If the county can gain $1.6 million by allowing Waste Management to fill up the landfill that they were going to fill up eventually they should,” said Zick.