Legislation would allow landfills close to critical fish, wildlife areas

Under SB 328, landfills could be 1,500 feet from wildlife refuges, state parks, game lands

A bill has passed the N.C. Senate and is now in front of the N.C. House that would allow landfills to be placed closer to critical fish and wildlife habitat, including national wildlife refuges, state parks and game lands.

Senate Bill 328 passed the Senate on June 24. If passed by the House, it would gut a 2007 law intended to keep companies from creating large landfills in eastern North Carolina that would accept trash from outside the state.

Promoted by then-Senate leader Marc Basnight of Dare County, it protected habitat by preventing landfills from being opened within five miles of a national wildlife refuge, two miles of a state park or one mile from a public game land, and it raised the required distance between new landfills from 50 to 200 feet.

Under SB 328, the required distance between a landfill and national or state park, wildlife refuge or critical fishery would shrink to 1,500 feet, and it strikes from the 2007 law the following paragraph:

“The Department (of Environment and Natural Resources) shall deny an application for a permit for a solid waste management facility if the Department finds that construction or operation of the facility would result in significant damage to ecological systems, natural resources, cultural sites, recreation areas or historic sites of more than local significance. The areas include, but are not limited to, national or state parks or forests, wilderness areas, historic sites, recreation areas, segments of the natural and scenic river system, wildlife refuges, preserves and management areas, areas that provide habitat for threatened or endangered species, primary nursery areas and critical fisheries habitat designated by the Marine Fisheries Commission and Outstanding Resource Waters designated by the Environmental Management Commission.”

The Senate bill passed by a 29-16 margin, with all Democrats voting against it, along with three Republicans: Neal Hunt (Wake), Louis Pate (Lenoir/Pitt/Wayne) and Ron Rabin (Harnett/Johnston/Lee).

SB 328’s supporters said changes are needed because the 2007 law is so restrictive no landfill application can pass its requirements. Industry lobbyists also said under 2007 rules available landfill space in North Carolina is almost non-existent.

One of the bill’s major sponsors, Sen. Harry Brown (R-Jacksonville), said in a news report that the 2007 buffers would “pretty much kill the bill.” But Pete Benjamin, ecological services supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, sent a letter to DENR Secretary John E. Skvarla, noting in 2007 that his scientists provided information based on careful environmental studies when the legislature created current buffers around landfills.

Benjamin noted input for the (2007) buffer recommendations were based on “the science regarding potential offsite landfill impacts, precedent in other states, and the professional judgment of contaminant specialists in our office with a combined 24 years of experience.”

When it appeared that landfills were planned near the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge and the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia before 2007, news reports indicated Chesapeake, Va., officials sued because they were concerned the landfills would contaminate the region’s water table.