The Associated Press

RUSSELLVILLE, Ky. - The state is moving ahead with allowing a solid waste transfer station to operate in Logan County.

The project has drawn opposition over issues such as the plant's potential for groundwater contamination.

The Kentucky Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet previously issued a permit allowing the station to operate in the county. A hearing officer recommended nullifying the permit.

But cabinet Secretary Henry C. List has rejected the officer's recommendation.

Bowling Green-based Apex Environmental LLC obtained the permit in May to operate a trash transfer station in an unincorporated area of Logan County. Unincorporated areas of the county are not governed by planning and zoning regulations.

Several neighbors of the transfer station together filed a petition with the state's Office of Administrative Hearings asking the state to revoke its permit.

In September, a hearing officer recommended a summary judgment that would have set aside the permit "based on a procedural technicality that the public notice published" by the facility's owner was incorrect, according to records filed with the Office of Administrative Hearings.

Mr. List disagreed with that recommendation and on Dec. 11 remanded the case back to the administrative hearing officer. The hearing officer has scheduled a Jan. 29 teleconference for the case.

"It comes as no surprise that the entity that you've sued is the entity rejecting the hearing officer's opinion," said Bowling Green attorney Bud Strickler, who is representing the neighbors opposed to the trash transfer station.

"We want to get somebody impartial to ultimately decide it," Mr. Strickler said.

The affected parties can appeal the secretary's order to Franklin Circuit Court - and have 30 days after his decision to do that, cabinet spokesman Mark York said.

Mr. Strickler said he will appeal.

Meanwhile, the neighbors represented by Mr. Strickler have also joined the county in a separate lawsuit that Logan County Fiscal Court filed against Apex in August in Logan Circuit Court.

In its suit, the county has asked the court to determine whether Apex Environmental falls under a new county ordinance that requires solid waste facilities to obtain a county permit before opening.

The county created the ordinance June 25 and will have to allow any facilities that were operating before that date to continue business as usual without a county permit. But the county maintains that the Apex transfer station was not in operation prior to that date.