Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Application Filed To Place Class I Landfill In Clark County

A preliminary application has been filed to get a class I landfill permitted in Clark County.

Should the permitting process be successful, the landfill would be licensed for an area near Gurdon in the Goodbye Bottoms off Lockie Road.

Representatives from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ), formerly known as the Arkansas Department of Pollution Control and Ecology, were at a public meeting in the Arkadelphia City Hall, to get input from the general populace concerning a landfill.

They also told of the process required in trying to get a piece of land permitted for a class I landfill.

Geoffrey Little, with the ADEQ technical department, presented a slide show of the process.

He said the ADEQ received a notice of intent from the Southwest Central Solid Waste Regional Management District concerning a site for the landfill. The district is made up of Clark, Hot Spring and Garland counties.

The first step, Little said, was for te ADEQ's engineers to se if the site was suitable for a landfill. There were actually three different locations found in Clark County, but the one in the Goodbye Bottoms appears to be the best suited for a variety of reasons, proximity to a highway being one.

Little said there are three points in the permitting process when the public can get involved, pointing out The meeting Tuesday, Aug. 24, was one.

When the official application is filed for the landfill a public hearing will be set, with the third time for public involvement being when the ADEQ is ready to make a decision.

The ADEQ's role, he said, is as manager of solid waste rules and regulations, making sure they are followed and the state's environmental laws being adhered to.

But, the ADEQ isn't the only agency involved in landfills. The Arkansas Department of National Heritage, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Commission, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission also have duties where landfills are concerned.

The site is checked to see if there are any Native American burial mounds are in the area, how wildlife will be affected and how the area stacks up in the flood plane.

The ADEQ also looks at the proposed design and construction of a landfill to make sure the ground water won't be contaminated.

Little pointed out the state and ADEQ did not pick the proposed landfill site. This decision was made by the solid waste district's board of directors.

The ADEQ's role, though, he said, goes from the pre-ap stage until 30 years after a landfill is closed to make sure the rules, regulations and laws are followed.

A class I landfill, Little said, is for the dumping of household garbage, bulky wastes and non-hazardous materials.

There are four types of landfills, all broken down by what can be buried in them.

Clayton Franklin, a resident in the area, asked about the criteria used in picking this site, along with other sites considered.

Little said 12 sites in the three county area region.

This location, he continued, was selected because it is in the midway clay formation. This is a deep clay formation, the type preferred for landfill operations because of its low permeability.

Bill Fletcher, project engineer, said several sites were examined in the three counties, with all criteria required by the ADEQ checked against them.

This site, he said, met the criteria better than all the others looked at. Some of the areas were sandy, and weren't feasible for a landfill. In Garland County, he continued, the sites had problems with sandstone and shale formation.

Franklin invited representatives from the ADEQ to visit the community near the proposed site. He said it was primarily a minority community and this could cause problems later on.

Gurdon resident Tommy Potter voiced his concern about the site location being in the 500 year flood plane. This region, he said, is where the Ouachita and Little Missouri Rivers converge.