HUBBARD TOWNSHIP Trustees discuss company's landfill proposal

'Ohio cannot continue to be a dump,' a trustee said.
HUBBARD -- More than 50 citizens crammed into the Hubbard Township building last night to find out what trustees are going to do about a Maryland company that plans to open a 10-million-ton solid-waste dump on the wetlands next to Yankee Run.
Bob Grey a retired Delphi worker, began the public comments portion of the meeting by demanding to know where the trustees stood on the issue and many others followed his lead.
"Are you for it or against it?" Grey asked, and before Trustee Fred Hanley could answer, the question was asked again and again by other disgusted citizens.
The dump is no more than 12 feet from Yankee Run, which flows into Hubbard's water source, the Shenango Reservoir, officials said.
Approval process
Hanley met the complaints by walking over to a chalkboard and demonstrating the process that Trans Rail America Inc., the Maryland company, has to go through in order to get approval for the landfill.
The company must first be approved by the federal government, which has taken the matter under review because it deals with wetlands, which are considered a vital resource.
If the federal government approves the plan, a public meeting would be called by the Trumbull County Board of Health to determine if the plan is in compliance with state law.
Lastly, if it is approved by the Board of Health, the company would have to get past the zoning regulations imposed by Hubbard Township on what can or cannot be built on the wetlands.
Hanley said that the planning and zoning commission's plan for the wetlands does not include building a landfill. Officials who wrote the regulations made plans for the wetlands to be used in a way that would preserve the green space.
A caution
Hanley cautioned that citizens not be lax if they want to keep the landfill from being developed, citing what happened two years ago in Lordstown as an example.
LaFarge Corp. was given approval in September of 2002 to build a slag landfill on wetlands located on Newton Falls-Bailey Road in Lordstown.
Hanley said he couldn't tell residents if he was for or against the construction of the landfill because trustees are required to be unbiased and if he were to express any bias, Transworld lawyers could use it as a loophole to get past zoning regulations.
He did however express concern over the effect that a solid waste dump would have on the Hubbard community.
"Ohio cannot continue to be a dump, guys," he said. "We've gone from steel mills to landfills in a matter of a few years. We have to raise our prices so they don't come here."
In 2002, Ohio imported 2.2 million tons of out-of-state waste, according to the EPA. Testimony given in July by Christopher Jones, director of the Ohio EPA, before a congressional panel revealed that one of the major reasons that Ohio has been taking a lot of waste from other states is because of its relatively low disposal fees.
It was estimated by Jones that Ohio's disposal fees for out-of state waste were more than $10 per ton lower than Virginia's, and more than $20 lower than Pennsylvania's and New York's.