OnlineAthens, May 13, 2008
Oglethorpe County has given the owners of 79 acres on Dawson Road until June 9 to accept its offer to buy the land before it starts condemnation proceedings for the property needed to expand the Athens-Clarke Landfill.
Oglethorpe County officials agreed in March to pay landowner Anne Steiner $682,000 for the property, but the two parties have not signed an agreement.
The family has until June 9 to accept the offer or the government, which shares the landfill with Clarke County, will use eminent domain to seize the property, said Robert Johnson, chairman of the Oglethorpe County Commission.
"Hopefully, the land (deal) can be negotiated before then," Johnson said.
Kim Steiner, the daughter-in-law of land owner Anne Steiner, said in March that the family wasn't willing to sell the land but would have an independent appraiser determine its value. That appraisal was supposed to be completed by May 5, according to Johnson, but commissioners have not seen the report.
The landfill, which straddles the Clarke-Oglethorpe county line, has three to five years of space left, and the expansion would add about 25 to 30 years to its life, Johnson said.
Athens-Clarke County owns the landfill, but Oglethorpe County receives 10 percent of the tipping fees that haulers pay when they bring trash to the dump.
The state Environmental Protection Division still must approve a permit before the expansion.
In the meantime, local environmental activists have submitted petitions to Athens-Clarke and Oglethorpe county officials, asking them to reconsider their January votes to expand the site.
The decisions violate the 1992 agreement made between the two counties to close the site, rather than expand it, once it reached capacity.
"Such blatant disregard to uphold government integrity is an affront to the democratic process and constitutional protection of human rights," said Jill McElheney, an environmental activist.
State law says the agreement is not enforceable since commissions are prohibited from binding another, future commission made up of different members.
The agreement was based on the assumption that a regional landfill would be built, but that effort failed in 1998 after an outcry from residents living near 25 proposed sites. Athens-Clarke commissioners can't vote to reconsider the earlier decision since those votes only can be made in meetings that immediately follow the initial vote and before the adoption of the minutes, said Athens-Clarke County Commissioner Andy Herod.
People near landfills often have a difficult challenge when the governmental agency decides to expand the facility by involuntary (condemnation) purchase. What is seen is often much less than what is there!
