Wednesday, August 18, 1999
250 raise stink over Gray Rd. landfill
BY ERIN GIBSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Neighbors of Gray Road landfill may get some redress for perceived problems with the dump after a heated, emotional public hearing in Winton Place on Tuesday night.
During the meeting, at which about 250 people packed a room in the Gray Road Church of Christ, Cincinnati Councilman Charles Winburn signed a City Council motion, drafted by neighbors, asking the city to address complaints against the landfill. Three other council members — Paul Booth, Minette Cooper and Todd Portune — later signed the motion.
Neighbors contend that the landfill's operation deflates their quality of life with excessive dust, noise and debris, and that the landfill's application for a new 17-acre permit would violate city zoning ordinances.
The city has yet to rule on the permit. “Every neighborhood has a right to self-determination,” Mr. Winburn said. “You have a right to not have that in your neighborhood.”
The motion, when filed by Mr. Winburn, will require city administrators to develop an action plan within two weeks for resolving neighbors' problems with the dump.
City action requested in the motion includes:
• Denial of the Gray Road landfill's permit application to cut 17 more acres of dirt from its property and fill that space with construction and demolition debris.
• A detailed city survey of the landfill to determine whether it is operating within its already permitted area.
• Enforcement of zoning regulations. Neighbors contend that heavy-duty waste trucks on residential Gray Road violate such regulations.
• Moving heavy truck traffic related to the landfill from two-lane, home-lined Gray Road to four-lane Winton Road. Landfill owner Roy Schweitzer has said he favored such a move, and council members at the meeting said they would ask the city to approve it.
• Enforcement of a City Council motion passed last year that prohibits the city from doing business with contractors who violate city laws or regulations. Neighbors showed copies of four letters of violation issued to the landfill by the county and city in the last two years.
About 45 homes and three dozen apartments are affected. Representatives of the Gray Road landfill and of one trucking company that hauls waste to and from it told those attending the meeting that they would work with them to resolve problems.
Kitt Cooper, attorney for the landfill, said the dump would not curb its plans to use its entire 86-acre property, however. Business design plans for those acres were put into place and approved by the city three years ago, he said.
An anti-dump sentiment controlled most of the hearing, where about 25 residents spoke to a handful of City Council members, city attorneys as well as the large audience.
Comments from Mr. Cooper and others connected to the landfill received grumbles from the crowd.
Andy Curran, who lives in the 4800 block of Gray Road, showed a two-minute videotape of trucks whizzing past his front yard. The chronicle of noise, dust and nighttime truck traffic drew wild applause.
Other neighbors brought in head-size chunks of concrete that had fallen from untarped waste trucks — some of them county or city operated trucks, they said. One man brought in a 5-foot-long board riddled with protruding nails that he said fell off a truck last week.
“People can't live under those conditions,” Councilwoman Jeanette Cissell said to neighbors, trucking and landfill representatives.
“It is ridiculous for us to have to sit here tonight and have to tell you that this is wrong.”
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