Use of pulp material for cover contributing to issues with Anderson Regional Landfill

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By Stan Welch
In a series of recent meetings with various public officials and corporate representatives, residents of the Cheddar community have raised a number of issues, including traffic problems, hours of operation at the Anderson Regional Landfill, and odor problems at the facility as well.
Documents provided to The Journal by Councilwoman Cindy Wilson, covering a span of two years, offer information on both the causes and possible solutions to two of those issues. On March 29, Juli Blalock, manager of the Solid Waste Permitting and Monitoring section of the state Bureau of Land and Waste Management, sent a letter to Wilson which shed a great deal of light on the subjects.
The letter referred to a letter issued two years earlier, in March of 2016, that authorized the use of pulp material, a side product created at the First Quality tissue plant, as alternate daily cover (ADC) at the landfill. Several conditions were in place. The use of the pulp as ADC was to be achieved within twenty four hours of the material’s arrival at the site. The material was to be covered with either soil or a tarp, and runoff from the borrow pit was to be properly managed. Finally, if the use of the material as ADC was discontinued for any reason, so would the stockpiling of the material onsite.
The ninety day pilot project was successful enough that ARL requested permission to bring trucks in from First Quality(FQ) after normal operating hours, due to the continuous nature of the operations at the tissue plant.
The permission was granted, thereby compounding the issue of the odor produced by the pulp. ARL proposed the creation of a 75 foot by 150 foot borrow pit to hold the material until it could be mixed with soil to be used as cover. According to the letter, only FQ trucks were granted after hours access to the landfill. They were to dump the pulp material in the borrow pit to be held until normal operating hours.
The most recent letter mentioned that ARL representatives had met with state officials on March 14 of this year to propose alternatives for managing the pulp in response to the odor issues. Also discussed were the logistical problems raised by the pulp hauling company’s operations adjacent to the landfill. According to the letter, ARL committed to providing a response to the those concerns as well.
Perhaps more importantly, the letter indicated ARL’s willingness to work with DHEC and the local residents in establishing a citizen’s advisory board (CAB) as “an effective way for a company to share information with their local community and to work collaboratively towards finding solutions” to issues as they arise. The establishment of such a committee has long been a goal of Wilson and the area’s residents. The initiation of the committee is to follow as soon as possible.