Landfill buries public records
The Franklin County landfill is burying more than trash these days: It’s burying public documents, and the legality of this is questionable.
When a Dispatch story first reported in May that a local mulch maker had gotten a $700,000 freebie at the landfill in Jackson Township, depositing more than 16,000 tons of debris without charge because of either a fuzzy contract or cheating, the public agency that runs the landfill was forthright in saying it was investigating.
The Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio had become suspicious about a sudden surge of debris; 791 truckloads raised eyebrows.
But actions that keep the public in the dark now shift suspicion onto SWACO. If its officials took appropriate measures to prevent illegal or improper dumping, the public has no way to tell: Dozens of emails from officials discussing the matter were blacked out.
SWACO Managing Counsel Rebecca Egelhoff says the text redacted in the dozens of emails, requested by The Dispatch under publicrecords laws, is protected by attorney-client privilege.
She said the emails were “to secure legal advice.”
On what weighty matter? The redacted emails — circulated among middle managers, including the public-relations manager — have subject lines such as “response to Dispatch editorial,” “weekend Dispatch story” and “yard waste.”
In many smaller organizations like SWACO, staff attorneys are part of the management team and frequently are consulted. So it makes sense that the staff lawyer would have been copied. But SWACO acknowledges it has no active litigation on this matter. It’s not currently suing. It’s not being sued.
“As a matter of principle and the law, you can’t make something secret just because an attorney touched it,” said Dennis Hetzel, president and executive director of the Ohio News Media Association.
Otherwise, an agency could make every public record secret.
The emails were sent around the time the Dispatch broke the story that Kurtz Brothers had dumped the truckloads of waste for free in mid 2016 and early 2017. Kurtz said was entitled to free dumping under a contract first negotiated in 1992, which allows it to dump “foreign materials” contaminating the yard waste it diverts from the landfill and processes into mulch. People throw plastic bottles, bags and rocks into yard waste all the time.
SWACO and Kurtz, however, disagree about what qualifies for free dumping, and the contract is said to be vague. It’s worth noting that Kurtz and SWACO once employed the same lobbyist, John Raphael, who ended up in federal prison on a different matter.
Another concern is what was in those 791 truckloads. Kurtz had sold its 36-acre Groveport mulch facility in early 2016; it says it was clearing out debris that had been sitting around. Satellite images show buildings were once on that site. Kurtz reports it had hired a demolition firm and figures the construction materials went to a different landfill.
Equally questionable is what the emails (the readable parts) show: SWACO had discovered that some of the trucks dumping for free had been loaded in Alexandria, near Granville, well outside of SWACO’s district. Kurtz says the debris had been taken from Franklin County yard waste, then transferred eastward out of the county for storage.
So it was then trucked in the opposite direction, southwest toward Grove City? Sounds costly.
These redacted records belong to the public. Government officials are merely their custodians. SWACO should immediately and fully release these records and come clean on what it is hiding from the public.