There are two sides to almost every issue, and the proposed Roberta Phase II Landfill at Bear Creek in north Oneida is no exception.

On the one hand, the lifestyle that we live as a “civilized” society produces tons of trash each and every day; trash that has to be placed somewhere. And it’s impossible to blame the business partners of Roberta Phase II for seizing on an opportunity to make money. They’re good men; men who have dedicated much to the local community, not only professionally but through their personal acts of good will towards fellow Scott Countians. If you’re looking for something negative to be said about them, it won’t be here or by me.

On the other hand, it’s human nature to have a NIMBY (not in my backyard) attitude. If someone were proposing to build a landfill just down the street from me, I would be the first one to turn in my comment card to speak at the public hearing. You can’t blame Bear Creek residents for being up in arms about this proposed landfill. And you can’t blame Scott Countians who are, quite frankly, sick and tired of seeing this rural community used as a dumping ground by outside interests.

The primary problem here is the mandated permit process. Ideally, each county would be responsible for its own waste. As Scott County Republican Party Chairman Chuck Valentine said at Monday’s public hearing, let Scott County take care of its trash disposal, and let everybody else take care of their trash disposal. A simplistic approach to a complicated problem? Perhaps. But it certainly beats the alternative: Where counties can pay a little more to truck their waste away from their back yards and dump it in the back yards of their neighbors.

Unfortunately, no one can tell a private landfill whose trash it will accept and whose trash it will reject. And county and municipal governments have no say-so in whether a private landfill is approved.

Therein lies the problem. Local governments should have the authority to approve or reject a proposed landfill. Instead, the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation serves as the sole authority on the matter and can single-handedly approve or reject an application (though the department is mandated by state statute to issue the permit if the proposed landfill meets technical requirements).

It shouldn’t be this way. Say what you want to about private property rights. But the fact of the matter is that a proposed landfill doesn’t only impact the landowners. Their neighbors have to see it, smell it and, eventually, maybe even drink a little of it. Although water quality issues tend to be blown out of proportion in emotional public hearings, the fact remains that the EPA says that all landfill liners will eventually leak. It was telling that, at last night’s hearing, Dr. George Hyfantis, the engineer hired to design the landfill, was pointedly asked whether he could personally guarantee that the landfill would never contaminate the ground water and he could not answer in the affirmative.

The question fielded by Dr. Hyfantis was one of many inquiries lobbed by citizens from the standing-room-only crowd. Of those who took the podium, the lone voice of support for the landfill was former Huntsville alderman Wes Riggins, who correctly stated that “you have to put a dump somewhere.” Granted, 60 or 70 citizens showing up at the Oneida Municipal Building at supper-time on a Monday evening don’t represent the 22,000 or so folks who make up Scott County. But every measure of public opinion on this matter—whether it’s newspaper polls, public hearings or coffee-shop chatter—has found an overwhelming majority in opposition to the proposed landfill.

But the court of public opinion doesn’t matter in the landfill approval process. TDEC representative Tommy Himes said as much when he told the gathering of concerned citizens at last night’s meeting that the state has already “tentatively approved” the landfill. The only thing that can derail the process, he said, is if technical information can be offered to the contrary; if something can be said that indicates the landfill would violate the state’s clean water and solid waste disposal standards. Folks who turn out for public hearings, for the most part, aren’t experts on clean air or waste disposal standards. They can’t offer the contrary technical information that the state is looking for. All they can do is offer an impassioned plea that trash not be dumped in their back yard. Their opinions don’t fall on deaf ears. But they might as well.

And what we’re left with is a landfill that Scott County and its leaders have no voice in. A landfill that will accept trash from 11 neighboring counties in addition to Scott County. A landfill that will collect somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 tons of trash per day…taking only 2.5 years to fill to capacity. Roberta Phase I is nearly full. Roberta Phase II (24 acres in size) will be full in less than three years. And, by the admission of the engineering firm, another landfill will be applied for, and then another, until the entire 308 acres is eventually filled to capacity.

And there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

The NIMBY arguments might not be grounded in sound technical reasoning. But if Scott County is going to be used as a dumping ground for our neighbors’ trash, is it too much to ask that we be given a say-so in the matter?