UNBELIEVABLE!!
The sheer arrogance of the garbage company NCL was exposed in their letter to the Madison County Board of Supervisors in their attempt to buy the County’s study of whether Madison County needs a third unprecedented landfill!
As if paying for the study wasn’t bad enough, NCL’s lawyer then directed the Board in the letter on what actions they needed to take and made clear they have no choice but to follow his demands due to an agreement a former Board signed with the garbage company nearly 20 years ago.
It’s worth reminding people that NCL threatened to sue the County at a December supervisors’ meeting if they did study the county’s solid waste needs. Now, since MDEQ is requiring a study, NCL is not only demanding a study, but now willing to pay for it. The irony is rich.
Of course, Madison County citizens needed no one to explain to them that NCL’s brazen letter to our local elected officials was outrageous. Clearly, the garbage company hoping to build the landfill cannot pay for the study to determine if it’s needed. Everyone but NCL knows that would make the study worthless.
Apparently, NCL thinks our Board of Supervisors are asleep on the job.
Well, I was pleased to see that NCL’s lawyer wrote a second letter to the Board saying “NCL withdraws its request.” Apparently, someone at the Board told NCL this is unacceptable. Good for them.
We need our Madison County Board of Supervisors to stand up for Madison County residents. I am sure the Board is tired of being bossed around by some outside garbage company. This is our county. The Board of Supervisors has the power to stop this landfill. This is their opportunity to be the heroes in this sad tale.
And it is a sad tale, but it’s personal to me.
My family and I are long-time homeowners in a tiny neighborhood of 20 homes called Woodland Springs just a few miles west of Ridgeland. Many of our neighbors in this rural part of Madison County have lived here for four to five generations. Literally, some of these people’s ancestors were slaves on this very land.
Now, a big garbage company wants to build a landfill within one mile of our neighborhood. If this were the first landfill in our neighborhood, then maybe it’s just our turn. However, this will make two landfills within a mile of our house and three landfills in Madison County.
We are to the point of desperation in our neighborhood. We already have the stench, pollution, big garbage trucks zooming down Greens Crossing Road, deflated property values and nasty fumes affecting our children. I believe this is a case of environmental and socioeconomic injustice!
I am a registered nurse and work long shifts. I have two grandchildren who want to play in my yard, but I am genuinely afraid for them to play outside at my house because of the fumes we smell from already having the state’s largest landfill just across the woods from us.
It’s too much to add another landfill on top of us, especially when they plan to bring in garbage from other counties.
Fortunately, there is bipartisan opposition to this landfill. People of every background are united to stop this injustice. We all breathe the same air!
And people are fed up!
On behalf of my neighbors, I urge the Madison County Board of Supervisors, Governor Reeves and other state officials to put a stop to this injustice.
We the people are counting on you to represent our interests and not the interests of an outside garbage company. Please show that our faith in you is warranted.
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Submitted by Cynthia McGilbery. She is a registered nurse and a homeowner in the Woodland Springs neighborhood within a mile of the proposed landfill site in Madison County.
Magnolia Tribune
