Landfill owner: 'Don't trash our work'

The company plans a $146 million expansion of the facility.
CINCINNATI (AP) -- The owners of Ohio's most dumped-on landfill say they'll draw upon family ties to keep them together as they begin to face the scrutiny of public hearings over a $146 million expansion project.
Rumpke Consolidated Companies Inc., among the nation's largest privately owned waste and recycling companies, is prepared for opposition, especially from neighbors of its mountainous landfill northwest of Cincinnati that grows by 8,000 tons of garbage a day.
Despite detractors calling their business dirty, smelly, noisy and too big, the Rumpke family is proud.
"We provide an essential service," said Jeff Rumpke, 37, the company's regional vice president, whose grandfather started the business as a junkyard and coal yard in 1932.
The firm -- which employs 1,947, including 75 Rumpke relatives -- expects $340 million in revenues in 2006.
Ruffled feathers
But its expansion plans have some neighbors worried. Rumpke officials are seeking government approval to expand its 509-acre landfill to 868 acres, which would add another 30 to 50 years to its lifespan and keep the family in the garbage business for generations.
As with previous expansions, Rumpke's latest faces stiff opposition at government meetings.
"Enough is enough," declared Nancy Lindemood, after a recent meeting of the Colerain Township Zoning Commission.
Rumpke received 2.02 million tons of trash in 2004, the most recent year figures are available.
Bill Margrave, 69, lives across the street from the landfill, right in the middle of the proposed expansion. When he first moved there in 1960, the landfill sat in a valley and couldn't be seen from his home.
Now, the landfill fills in the valley and sits 1,068 feet above sea level.
Margrave is unwilling to take Rumpke's offer to buy his home for $200,000. He countered with $920,000 or "$20,000 for every year we've been here and put up with the noise, the odor and the blasting (to remove layers of shale and limestone before dumping the garbage)."
"My gut feeling," Margrave said, "is they're going to make it so bad that we'll take anything they offer."
When the Rumpke name is praised or taken in vain, family members visibly sit up straighter, whether it's in the privacy of their corporate offices or the glare of public meetings.
"When I see a room with 40 people saying things against us, I think about the two million residents we serve, the 20,000 businesses and the 50 municipalities that come to this site," Jeff Rumpke said.
Rumpke's father, Bill Sr., recalled what his father told him about the family business.
"Pop would say, 'Don't be down because you're in this business. Be proud of it. Make a dollar at it.'"