Plans for Girard debris landfill are scrapped

girard

A company that was planning a construction debris landfill on North State Street will withdraw the application for the dump, Mayor Jim Melfi said Thursday.

Total Waste Logistics, 1025 Bundy Road, Girard, told the city’s health commissioner Wednesday it will withdraw the application with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency within 30 days, Melfi said.

The announcement ends six years of fighting between the company and the city, which adamantly opposed the dump.

A citizens group called Girard United Against Ruinous Dumping also formed to oppose the plan, in which the company would have used 42 acres of Ohio Central Railroad property near the Creekside Golf Dome.

“We thought it was a ridiculous place to put a landfill,” Melfi said. “It’s close to residents and commercial property.”

He said there are many residences within a half-mile of the property.

“I expressed absolute shock that they attempted to do something there,” he continued. “It’s right across from a cemetery that holds Civil War veterans.”

Melfi said that he recommended the city file a lawsuit to take the property by eminent domain, and that suit is still pending in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.

He said the city will still press the suit even when the application is withdrawn and plans to use the property for park land.

There was no one available for comment at the Total Waste Logistics’ offices Thursday afternoon.