Greensboro landfill fate still uncertain

Greensboro landfill fate still uncertain

September 20, 2011 | Keri Brown

Greensboro City Council members were expected to consider hiring Gate City Waste to manage the landfill in North East Greensboro, but a few hours before the public meeting the council's agenda changed.

"The city did receive a letter from the folks over at Gate City Waste services requesting to terminate contract negotiations. They had been selected by our city council to operate the White Street Landfill, the municipal solid waste portion, which is known as phase three and the demolition and construction debris portion which is known as phase two." said Dale Wyrick, the city of Greensboro's field operations director.

Currently, the White Street landfill is only accepting a small amount of construction and demolition debris. The city's solid waste materials are being transported to a landfill in Montgomery County. Many people believe the landfill is causing health issues and is a public nuisance. Others believe re-opening the landfill to accept trash and other debris makes good business sense. City officials said some of the methane gas from the landfill is being piped to a nearby denim factory for use. Wyrick said the landfill contains about a 15 year supply of methane gas that won't be replenished unless more trash is added to the site.

Donnie Turlington, Communications Manager for the city of Greensboro, said city council planned to extend the contract with its current waste provider, Republic Services at Tuesday's meeting. Republic Services will continue managing the landfill through the end of the year. That contract was set to expire at the end of this month. Turlington said city council is deciding what action to take from here.

" They have to determine what the next steps will be and essentially with the timetable with elections here in less than two months, my expectation is thet they will let the next seated council take up the discussion of what happens from here on," said Turlington.