The Greenville News

The Pickens County Legislative Delegation sent a letter to the state Department of Environmental Control on Tuesday to express its opposition to a company’s plans to dispose of coal ash at a site near Liberty, state Sen. Larry Martin said.

The project would “bring into Pickens County a waste that is not generated here and has broad environmental concerns for all of our citizens,” the letter to DHEC Director Catherine Heigel says.

The delegation's action follows reporting in The Greenville News that disclosed plans to bring thousands of tons of coal ash, a byproduct of coal-fired power plants that can contain toxic heavy metals, to a landfill site that had been approved for disposal of benign materials such as wood, concrete and yard waste.

DHEC has approved Raleigh-based MRR Pickens’ request to add a synthetic liner to the yet-to-be-built landfill along State 93 and Cartee Road, which would allow it to serve as a repository for a type of coal ash of reduced content of heavy metals.

But the agency has yet to approve its request for “a significant increase” in the 70,500 tons per year the company was permitted to handle when it received approval for an unlined landfill eight years ago that was never built.

The delegation’s letter points out that when the landfill was approved in 2007 county officials never considered that it might become a site for disposal of coal ash.

“The site is much too close to the City of Liberty and to the Pickens County Industrial Park, and we oppose Pickens County becoming a dumping ground for this out of state company,” the letter says.

Pickens County Council plans to consider a resolution on the issue at its meeting Monday.

Company officials have not responded to requests for information from The Greenville News and haven’t answered questions from DHEC as to where the coal ash would come from and how much.

“We were very surprised and deeply concerned to learn right before Christmas that an out-of-state company has applied for a permit to dispose of coal ash in Pickens County,” Martin, the delegation chairman said.

“The introduction of coal ash into a construction and debris landfill goes well beyond its intended use,” he said. The original plan was for the landfill to handle construction waste and debris because the county landfill was nearly full, but the landfill was never built.

“The company’s plan will significantly diminish any benefit that the C&D landfill would provide for the citizens of Pickens County," Martin said. “Also, it most assuredly brings significant environmental concerns to our community for disposal of a material that isn’t produced here."