County suing landfill operators
Board votes to file a complaint in local court against Waste Industries for financial, operational issues.
A lawsuit was filed in the Tallapoosa Circuit Superior Court on Thursday on behalf of the Polk County Board of Commissioners seeking to get Waste Industries to fix ongoing issues at the Grady Road Landfill, as well as money officials say the company owes for overcharging and holding back host fees.
The complaint comes despite the best efforts of the landfill’s operators to solve those problems according to one executive in an interview earlier this week.
County commissioners voted Tuesday to move forward with the complaint, which will be heard in Superior Court Judge Michael Murphy’s courtroom.
The suit seeks just $ 811,552.40 in monetary compensation from Waste Industries for two specific financial violations in the
contract, stemming from the company overcharging the county on fuel fees, and additionally from underpayments of host fees. Those include interest derived from the overcharges and host fees due.
As well as those fees, the county’s complaint alleges Waste Industries hasn’t been making proper contributions to the trust for the post-closure fund to monitor the site through testing wells once it is closed for good, and seeks to get an independent auditor involved in the process.
It cites that Waste Industries failed to live up to the operating agreement due to “inadequate control of odors emanating from the landfill as a result, in part, of the acceptance and disposal of industrial and municipal sludge, among other odor producing sources.”
The lawsuit also states the agreement has been defaulted upon due to lack of proper litter control along Highway 278 leading to Grady Road, “flagging of waste deposited in the landfill resulting in an attraction for buzzards and annoyance to adjacent and nearby neighbors,” and for not covering the waste. The county also seeks redress of “failing to control escaping leachate and gases which contribute to the noxious odors at and near the landfill.”
A range of noise complaints from trucks, machinery and other equipment around the landfill also were included in the lawsuit’s reasons for Waste Industries failing to live up to the contract.
“Defendant has repeatedly promised and assured Polk County that it will alleviate these violations of the Operating Agreement, but it has failed to do so and continues to operate the landfill in breach of its obligations under the Operating Agreement,” the filing stated.
The county thus seeks a “permanent injunction requiring the defendant to abate the nuisances at the landfill caused by odors, litter, flagging of waste deposited at the landfill, inadequate ground cover, escaping leachate and gas, the proliferation of buzzards and the excessive noise.”
Waste Industries receives trash from 10 counties within the state of Georgia, along with two from across the border in Alabama in order to generate revenue, a portion of which goes back to the county in annual host fees and a charge per ton on a variable scale based on the daily tonnages brought into the facility near the intersection of Highway 278 and Grady Road.
The county is being represented by David Flint of Schreeder, Wheeler and Flint, LLP of Atlanta as lead attorney in the complaint. County Attorney Brad McFall is also working on the case as well.
McFall said following the county’s vote on Tuesday that complaints from citizens were one of the main reasons why the county seeks redress of problems of landfill operations.
“The board in an effort to address what we believe are these significant operational issues will be filing a complaint to bring the matter before the court to ensure that ETC of Georgia is fully and completely complying with our contract,” McFall said.
ETC of Georgia was the first company to sign a contract with the County in late 2001 to take over operations of the Grady Road Landfill. It was later bought by Waste Industries.
As far as the money goes, that comes down to a contract issue as well according to McFall.
“In addition to the operational issues, the county believes there are certain charges that have resulted in overcharges to the county,” he said. “We also believe there may have been inaccurate calculations regarding tonnage and host fees.”
McFall had no new comments following the Thursday filing.
Operational issues were those that Waste Industries Regional Vice President Jason Zepp said were ongoing, and his company i s seeking resolution. Buzzards, for instance, are currently being dealt with via an air cannon that goes off intermittently.
“What is meant to do is scare the buzzards out of the area. So they’ll essentially leave the area,” Zepp said. “Our concern was OK, if we’re going to scare them out of the landfill, scare them out of the area, we want them gone completely from the area, we don’t want them flying over the neighbor’s houses.”
The birds are a particular problem that many have complained about at past commission meetings. Zepp said in an effort to curb this problem of the buzzards, Waste Industries is testing a “high pitched sonar to try to combat them from one side. To boom here, and combat them here. So we’re trying to drive them out of the area altogether.”
Zepp s ai d s easonal migration of some of the buzzards is also causing issues with their current plan of attack, and that his company is committed to trying several tactics. A solution of eliminating the buzzards by simply shooting them is out of the question, he added.
“We don’t feel that is a great practice to do that on the landfill, and we don’t encourage anyone to do that,” Zepp said. “We’re going to try to engineer our way out of the problem instead of just shooting them, first and foremost.”
Another area where Waste Industries hopes to alleviate another problem is getting the growing vertical space of the landfill covered with grass as soon as possible. Zepp said the final capping project on the east side of the hill will allow it to “show green by the end of the summer.”
“That will help a lot with the aesthetics of the site,” Zepp said.
He also said that a tarp is now being used at night to cover the open cells being used at the time for garbage burial, and have started to use a spray-on called Posishell “an almost stucco-like material” to help combat the trash.
Also, he pointed out his company’s previous decision to pick up trash on a 10-mile stretch of Highway 278 outside of the agreement at their own expense as one way they’ve acted in good faith as the Grady Road Landfill operator.
Zepp covers many more of the issues in a Letter to the Editor distributed around the community and submitted to the Standard Journal for publication, available in this week’s edition on the Commentary page.
Waste Industries only wants to be “partners with the county, and that’s what we wanted from day one.”
“You haven’t seen us come back in social media. You haven’t seen us be defensive or combative,” Zepp said. “We’re not the enemy here. Yes, there is a landfill in the county. Yes, there are odors that come about.”
It was not known earlier in the week when Zepp sat down for an interview that the county is seeking monetary damages from Waste Industries for their allegation over the failure to pay full host fees and also over fuel fee overcharges.
Additional comments following the filing came in last Friday afternoon. Here’s Zepp’s full statement below:
“As expected, the Polk County Commission has elected to file a lawsuit against ETC. We are disappointed because this lawsuit will be protracted and expensive f or the County, and is completely unnecessary. We have worked in partnership with the Commission since 2004 and have worked hard not only to be best- in- class landfill operators, but also to be good and responsible corporate citizens.”
His statement continued that “We are highly confidant ETC is in compliance with the terms of the operating agreement, the landfill permit, and applicable law. Additionally, our operations meet or exceed all State and Federal regulatory requirements as well as our contractual obligations to the citizens of Polk County. Our goal is to continue to remain partners and not adversaries. We will continue to use our best practices and expertise in operating the Grady Road Landfill, while continuing to contribute to the Polk County economy in many ways.”