Houston Co. Landfill Filling Up Quickly
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Updated: 8:36 AM Mar 21, 2008
Houston Co. Landfill Filling Up Quickly
It’s been collecting over 300 tons of your household items each day for years and soon, it may have to find another home.
Posted: 9:00 PM Mar 20, 2008
Reporter: Vanessa Araiza
Email Address: vanessa@wtvy.com
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It’s been collecting over 300 tons of your household items each day for years and soon, it may have to find another home.

Multiple trucks visit the Houston County Landfill numerous times each day, but soon, they may travel to a different location.

Environmental Services Supervisor Bernard Ward said, "Probably in the next few months we'll meet with a consultant that will help us determine the feasibility of sighting a new landfill. Or, we just collect waste and take it out to another landfill."

Ward says in the next three to four years, the local landfill will reach its limit and another location will have to be used, costing a pretty penny.

Jerry Corbin, with the Public Works Department said, “If we're looking at 50 acres to open a new landfill that’s about $5 million dollars plus and then to close the old 50 acres, we're talking about another $5 million dollars."

Corbin says currently, there is approximately $2 million dollars already set aside for a landfill. But the question is whether or not to open another landfill or use Coffee County or Brundidge’s landfill instead.

"We own some land on the east side of Dothan that was contemplated as a possible future landfill at one point; whether or not we use that has not been decided at all," Corbin added.

Though a new landfill will not be needed for the next three to four years, the process is lengthy, which means officials will have to start to get the ball rolling in the next year.

"You got certain criteria you have to meet and all those criteria have to be looked at carefully and your selection process. It just depends on how that pans out, which one would be best, whether it’s to start a new one and/or take your waste to a private landfill,” Ward explains.

Officials say a problem they may run into is the location of a new landfill, saying many people do not want to live by one, so they will have to weigh their options very carefully.

Corbin says employees at the landfill have no reason to worry about losing their jobs even though the landfill will close in a few years.


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