Neighbors fighting landfill expansion

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Hearings continued Friday on a battle to expand a Northeast Travis County Landfill. Neighbors and landfill operators argued in front of an administrative law judge Friday. Neighbors are protesting the expansion of the Republic Services, formerly BFI, landfill near the Harris Branch and Pioneer Crossing Subdivisions in Northeast Travis County.

Republic Services said it will run out of space at the landfill by 2011 if it is not able to expand the landfill by 75 feet on a portion of the property. In November, the City of Austin dropped its opposition to the landfill expansion behind closed doors, which angered some city council members and neighbors.

"There's only been one violation in 27 years at that operation," said Dugas. "We recognize that. We've mitigated that and we're operating beyond that."

Still, neighbors are fighting the landfill's permit for expansion through the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

"Frankly, it's an area that would develop but for these landfills being here," said Jim Blackburn, a lawyer for neighbors concerned with the landfill expansion.

Evan Williams owns land directly to the west of the BFI landfill.

"Selling a home with a view of a dump is a hard sell as you can well imagine," Williams said.

Williams said surface water run off after a hard rain knocked down his fence. BFI representatives came out to fix the fence, but he said there are other problems with odor and noise.

"They've been very responsive," he said. "But it's just kind of a sad state of affairs that you have to call them to begin with."

Allied Waste operators said neighbors should be noticing a difference in the operations of the landfill.

"I think they've seen some significant improvements," said Dugas. "Both aesthetically and operationally. We intend to enhance those even more so going forward."

The administrative hearings are expected to last for two weeks. After the hearing, the judge will recommend to a panel of three TCEQ commissioners whether to accept the permit application for the BFI landfill.