Officials are concerned about the environmental impacts the project could have on an area that already has a nearby landfill
A plan to build an industrial waste landfill in North Baton Rouge has drawn the ire of city-parish officials who are concerned about the environmental impacts the project could have on an area that already has a nearby landfill and a large industrial presence.
"Enough is enough," East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President Kip Holden said at a Metro Council meeting Wednesday. "We're talking about a very serious facility that could cause long-term harm to the families that are in the area."
The landfill, planned by Louisiana Land Acquisitions LLC, would be built on the north side of Brooklawn Drive, about two miles west of Scenic Highway. The company's application to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, submitted in March, said it would take a maximum of 11,000 wet tons of non-hazardous industrial solid waste per week. That includes waste from manufacturing and agricultural processes, fertilizers, agricultural chemicals, and food and related byproducts.
Louisiana Land Acquisitions previously applied to DEQ for a permit in 2008, but was denied because DEQ didn't see a need for it, said DEQ Assistant Secretary Sam Phillips. There was already enough space for industrial waste at other landfills, including the Baton Rouge city-parish landfill just a couple of miles away.
What DEQ officials didn't realize at the time was that the city-parish landfill does not accept industrial waste, even though it has the necessary approvals to do so. Louisiana Land Acquisitions appealed DEQ's decision in a case that reached the state Supreme Court and was remanded back to lower courts.
In the meantime, the company came back to DEQ and showed them the city-parish landfill's written policy saying it doesn't accept industrial waste, Phillips said. Louisiana Land Acquisitions also narrowed the geographic area its landfill would accept waste from, so it was competing with fewer other facilities.
"Given those two considerations, our opinion is that the capacity is no longer an issue," Phillips said. "We felt the appropriate thing to do was to go forward with a public comment period to see what concerns the public may have for this potential landfill."
DEQ is hosting a public hearing to discuss the landfill on Thursday, July 18 at 6 p.m. at the Greenwood Community Park recreation center, 13350 Highway 19 in Baker. The agency is accepting public comments on the proposal until Aug. 19.
Attorney Timothy Hardy, who represents Louisiana Land Acquisitions and spoke at Wednesday's council meeting, said there is a need for the facility because no other facilities in East Baton Rouge Parish accept nonhazardous industrial solid waste. Currently, businesses have to truck their waste out to landfills in Ascension, Livingston, and other surrounding parishes, the company's application says.
Hardy said there's misinformation circulating among the local officials who oppose the landfill. For example, some have suggested that the landfill is proposing to take commercial waste as well as industrial waste - Hardy said that's not true, and that while documents about the landfill's plans describe them as "commercial," that's only in reference to the landfill itself being a business and a commercial facility.
"The main thing that's important to my client is that the facility is operated in a way that's protective of human health and the environment," Hardy said.
East Baton Rouge city-parish officials do not have any special standing in the permitting discussion, and "from an official standpoint, they are part of the public," Phillips said.
William Daniel, chief administrative officer in Holden's office, said his office wasn't aware of the proposal until a couple of weeks ago when it was notified of the public hearing because it is a nearby landowner.
"Nobody's been contacting us and said, 'Gosh, we just don't have a place to dump industrial waste in East Baton Rouge Parish," Daniel said at Wednesday's meeting. "There is absolutely no need for this type of landfill."