Why should taxpayers pay?

One of the objectives of the Bella Vista Patriots is to be a watchdog type of organization. During the period from 2003 to Dec. 31, 2016, when the Bella Vista Property Owners Association (POA) had operational control of the Trafalgar Stump Dump the Patriots received numerous complaints that the POA and Cooper Communities Inc. (CCI) employees were dumping illegal items in the dump site. We tried to get evidence of these reports without having any success.

Then finally on the morning of April 23, 2008, Leon Huff, the Vice Chairman of the Patriots knocked on my door and said, “Let me show you some pictures I just took coming down Trafalgar Road.” The pictures were of men in CCI trucks pushing four huge concrete mixing drums down into a 50- or 60-foot ravine of the dump site. I immediately called Jeff Sparrow, the local investigator for the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ). The next morning, Investigator Sparrow had CCI employees hoisting the drums out of the pit. The employees quickly erased the “COOPER” names off the drums.

In a Benton County Daily Record news article dated May 1, 2008, Neff Basore, Senior Vice President of CCI was quoted as saying, “We did what we thought was the right thing to do.” When a Bella Vista housewife is prohibited from throwing a tin can in the dump how could throwing four concrete mixers into the site be OK? The sign leading into the dump states, “NO KITCHEN WASTE, NO TIN CANS, NO BOTTLES OR OTHER NON-PERISHABLE ITEMS.”

In the same May article Mr. Basore claimed he got permission from the POA to place the drums in the pit. He was quoted in the article as saying, “We were (originally) told we were doing nothing wrong disposing (of the drums) in this fashion.” Bottom line: The POA authorizes CCI to drop four concrete mixing drums into the dump site, but a Bella Vista housewife is forbidden to do the same thing with a tin can. What’s up with that?

In a Morning News article dated April 30, 2008, Doug Szenher, Media Affairs Manager for ADEQ was quoted as saying, “Basically, it’s against the law to dispose of solid waste just by abandoning it.” Currently there have been several television and newspaper articles that have stated that neither CCI nor the POA had a permit to operate the stump dump from 2003 to Dec. 31, 2016.

The Bella Vista Patriots thank Governor Hutchinson and his delegation for helping to resolve this unfortunate situation and we agree with the Governor that it is best to do whatever it takes to put out the fire now and investigate who is liable later. The Patriots pray that at the end of the day and the smoke clears (literally) that the ones who put the toxic materials in the stump dump will be the ones to pay the expense for creating this disaster and not the innocent taxpayers of Arkansas.

Jim Parsons Bella Vista