NWA EDITORIAL | The region’s landfill may be in Tontitown, but whether it expands is a significant issue for everyone who produces waste

Landfill battle significant for region

The Waste Management facility Tuesday, July 27, 2021, the Waste Management Ecovista Tontitown Landfill in Tontitown. Waste Management has a large scale expansion plan for the site. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/FILE PHOTO)
The Waste Management facility Tuesday, July 27, 2021, the Waste Management Ecovista Tontitown Landfill in Tontitown. Waste Management has a large scale expansion plan for the site. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/FILE PHOTO)


Consumers these days are more knowledgeable than ever about recycling and reuse.

We fill containers full of cardboard, steel and aluminum cans, a few plastics and, in some place, glass and set them at the curb to be whisked away on the appointed day of the week, feeling good sensations as though we're a summer camper who just earned a environmental ranger badge pinned to our chest.

The thing is, we all very much fit the description we started this little editorial offering with: consumers. It's what we do and who we are. It's what all the marketing and advertising around us encourages us to do. And, yes, it seems manufacturers operate in many cases on the premise of planned obsolescence that inevitably inspires us sooner or later to observe, "They don't make things like they used to."

Waste, in many ways, is our way of life. Indeed, it's not unusual for obsolescence, planned or unplanned, to be rendered moot by our changing tastes or pursuit of the next great thing.

But it's no big deal, right? All we have to do is roll our full trash bin to the curb and its contents disappear. Poof! Room for more.

Nothing, though, actually disappears, despite what the illusionists -- do they still call them magicians -- would have us believe. Ol' Antoine Lavoisier had a few thoughts on that, if we remember our science classes.

We wasteful humans, then, need places to dispose of our trash. and in Northwest Arkansas, that place is in Tontitown, where the 609-acre Eco-Vista landfill has operated under various operators for decades. It's where most of the trash collected in the region goes to be buried.

Tontitown, however, has had its fill of being the region's dumping ground, at least according to city leaders in office these days. Residents say they've borne the burden of an operating landfill long enough. And if they get their way, all of Northwest Arkansas will feel the repercussions.

Tensions over meeting Northwest Arkansas' landfill needs certainly aren't new. Perhaps the most memorable clash came in the early 1990s when one of the former corporate owners of the landfill, Sunray Services Inc., sought permission to create a new landfill in southeast Washington County at Hobbs Mountain. The company at the time said the Tontitown location would be closed soon. The effort set off a historic grassroots battle by opponents, who claimed the area's geology would not support an environmentally sound landfill. Ultimately, the company gave up after losing key decisions by state regulators and amid local leaders' pledges to support expansion of the existing landfill.

Not long after that, regional leaders set out on a search to determine whether a credible location for a new landfill could be found. After tense meetings with farmers and other rural residents around the region, they came to a conclusion: The geology of Benton, Washington, Madison and Carroll counties makes any other location unsuitable for such an operation.

And so the Tontitown landfill has really become the last stand for the most economical way to dispose of waste in the booming northwest corner of Arkansas. Changes in the town's leadership, though, has transformed its generally supportive stance -- former leaders were known to refer to the landfill operators as "good corporate neighbors -- to one of outright opposition to expansion.

The state Pollution Control and Ecology Commission in March approved a permit for a 12-acre construction and demolition waste expansion by Eco-Vista -- i.e., Waste Management Inc. -- officials. Tontitown Mayor Angie Russell and the City Council as well as neighbors of the landfill filed an appeal opposing the expansion. Both appeals say the landfill is a nuisance to residents and contend the expansion needs the city's support to proceed under state law.

A proposed expansion of the landfill's Class I space -- for household waste -- is pending before state regulators.

So, what if the Tontitown landfill doesn't expand? What then?

It's clear that this isn't a decision affecting only Tontitown. Being forced to use other landfills will add lots of miles to trips to dispose of materials, costing businesses, waste haulers and municipal governments significant added expense that will trickle down to customers and taxpayers.

We don't know who will win the current battle over space for construction waste in the landfill. Tontitown is officially weary of being the "host community" and suggest its someone else's turn.

This battle, again, should awaken everyone in the region to the complications of not having a "local" landfill. The landfill is an asset for all of Northwest Arkansas. Eliminate it and trash rates will undoubtedly go up for everyone.

It may look like it's Northwest Arkansas vs. Tontitown, but it's really Northwest Arkansas vs. finding a suitable waste disposal method for the future. The region will eventually have to face a reality that its local landfill is full and can't keep going. Is that now?

The folks living near it understandably say "now" is already too late. It's just as understandable that the rest of the region needs that landfill as long as possible, if it's operating in a way that protects the environment. The experts will have to determine whether the landfill in Tontitown is a responsible way for the region to handle its waste needs.

That responsibility never goes away. It's just the cost of living up to it that changes.

Without that landfill, the cost of living in Northwest Arkansas will go up.

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Whats the point?

As Tontitown resists expansion of the Eco-Vista landfill, the region is reminded that losing its only landfill will come with a cost.

 


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