BY RAY SCHAEFER
Enquirer Contributor
UNION TOWNSHIP -- Browning-Ferris Industries' (BFI) Thursday withdrew a request for a zoning change to expand the Bigfoot Run landfill it operates.
Last week, the executive committee of the Warren County Regional Planning Commission voted 6-4 to reject BFI's request for a 139-acre site next to Bigfoot Run, located on Mason-Morrow-Millgrove Road. BFI officials have said they need the space to build a separate facility adjacent to Bigfoot Run, which is scheduled to reach capacity next May.
"We'd just like to step back and take a look at all the testimony," said Rob Dolder, BFI district vice president at Bigfoot Run.
Salem Township resident Roger Charleville, a member of the Morrow Environmental Preservation Association (MEPA), was relieved. "I am surprised," Mr. Charleville said. "I thought they'd fight it out."
Said MEPA member Ruth McKenzie: "This is just one battle." BFI's proposal called for 51 acres of the 139 acres northeast of Bigfoot Run to be used for trash disposal and requested a reduction of a setback from the Halls Creek Nature Preserve from 1,000 to 300 feet.
The plan also included green space, two ponds and an equipment maintenance area.
Mr. Dolder said three weeks ago BFI would donate to Little Miami Inc. (LMI) of Columbia Tusculum some 27 acres between Bigfoot Run and the Little Miami River, property he said BFI would not have used anyway.
LMI would eventually give the land to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
But a planning commission staff report released June 26 recommended reducing the disposal area to 39.3 acres and increasing the setback requirement to 500 feet.
C. Francis Barrett, a Cincinnati attorney representing BFI, said such a revision would make the project unfeasible.
In a letter dated Tuesday, Rumpke Consolidated Companies Inc. President William J. Rumpke wrote to the zoning commission that it could handle the 2,000 tons of trash a day Bigfoot Run now takes in.
"Due to the fact that we are now disposing of approximately 1,700,000 tons per year, we have the ability as well as air space to dispose of all the refuse in Warren County," the letter read in part.
BFI is also suing the Village of Morrow over the right to build a landfill on the former Alpine ski resort at the corner of Morrow-Blackhawk and Morrow-Woodville roads.
