Mobile County Commission rejects expansion of city-owned landfill

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - Citing concerns that include the impact of nearby residences, the Mobile County Commission on Monday said “no” to a proposed expansion of a landfill in Mount Vernon.

The city of Mobile owns the Chastang Landfill, which was seeking permission to accept more garbage and from outside the county. The landfill needed the county’s permission to raise the limit on solid waste from 1,750 tons to 5,000 tons.

Run by Waste Management, the facility also wanted to be able to accept garbage from parts of Mississippi and Florida, as well as other counties in southwest Alabama.

“The people who live in and around that landfill, this has been a major concern of theirs,” she said during the meeting,” Commission Chairwoman Merceria Ludgood said.

Commissioner Randall Dueitt seconded her motion to reject the request.

“They’re wanting to bring household garbage from the Louisiana state line in Mississippi all the way down to the entire Florida Panhandle, all the way up as far as Clarke and Escambia County and Greene and George County in Mississippi,” he said after the meeting.

Added Dueitt: “We’re not gonna become the dumping ground.”

Pete Riehm, the chairman of the Mobile Solid Waste Disposal Authority, said Chastang is the “most environmentally friendly landfill in the county.”

Riehm noted that the county not long ago granted a similar request from a landfill about two miles away.

“We’re asking for nothing less,” he told the commissioners.

Ludgood said the difference for her is that the landfill Riehm referenced is not in a residential area.”

Riehm told FOX10 News that an expansion of Chastang would increase royalties from a couple hundred thousand dollars to about $1 million a year. That money, he said, would be tucked away until the city at some point needed to build a new landfill.

And Riehm said the landfill will become even more environmentally friendly in a few months when a gas capture facility goes online that will capture gas coming off of the waste and sold as fuel.

Riehm said the county’s decision to turn down the request is “annoying” given the deal approved for the Chastang Landfill’s competitor.

“They’re taking all that in the same out-of-state sort of area,” he said. “So it’s not like we’re being a dumping ground, but even – and we don’t take hazardous waste. We’re talking about just garbage, right?”