A battle is intensifying between the people of Scott County and developers of a proposed 700-acre landfill in the town of Oneida. In the last two months, the towns of Huntsville, Oneida and Winfield along with Scott County, Tennessee and McCreary County, Kentucky have joined forces to form a government coalition with the intent to oppose the development of the new landfill, even if that fight has to be taken to court.
Simultaneously, community members from across the two counties have also banded together to form a citizens coalition – tentatively known as Don’t Trash Scott County – to resist the arrival of the dump. They argue that the county already has a landfill, and doesn’t need another one. The 800-acre Volunteer Regional Landfill has served the area since 1997.
In less than a month, the community group has already garnered nearly 2,000 members on Facebook. One of its organizers is Jennifer Shockley. She says she first learned about the landfill project in May, and has been scrambling to ask regulators at the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) and state lawmakers to stop it – without much luck.
“We realized that no one was going to help us, so we all decided to join forces and work on this issue together,” Shockley said. “The endgame is to stop the project. But mostly it’s to figure out how we can stand up for ourselves.”
Michelle and Ralph Trieschmann own the Timber Rock Lodge on the edge of Oneida. Their property borders the proposed landfill site, and they plan to join the citizens coalition to try and help put a stop to it.
“As citizens, we don’t want another new landfill next to the one that is currently there,” Michelle said. “I think that there are a lot of water issues, I think that there are a lot of environmental issues. … It will be an overburden on our county. We are a small, rural county. The idea to have two very large landfills right next to one another is ridiculous to me. There’s no need for it.”
The most common concern shared by residents and government leaders is that the dump will leak leachate – a toxic, liquid byproduct of rainwater runoff in landfills – into the nearby Bear Creek, which flows into the Cumberland River.
“This is not a place to just dump on,” Ralph said. “You can’t just bring your poisons from other places and put them here and think we’re just going to rollover quietly.”
Developers of the landfill have proposed shipping leachate runoff to Oneida’s wastewater treatment plant. Steve Owens, Oneida’s water manager, says they don’t want it.
“We’re already struggling with the other landfill,” Owens said. “I doubt we’re going to be able to handle [it].”
The government coalition, known as the Scott and McCreary County Environmental Coalition, held its inaugural meeting Wednesday. The session was almost immediately thrown off-kilter by the presence of Knox Horner, a Tennessee developer who has acted as the face of the Bear Creek landfill proposal.
After exchanging a few noticeably tense words with Horner that nearly erupted into an argument, coalition members say it’s justification to make future meetings private, so as not to disclose their decisions to the so-called “opposition.” McCreary County Water District Superintendent Stephen Whitaker said that Horner is already several steps ahead.
“The representatives of the landfill are here, listening to this,” Whitaker said. “They’re going to move mountains to try and get this done before we can get started.”
The landfill project dates back to 2010, when developers acquired a nearly 30-acre tract of land adjacent to Volunteer Regional, just a few miles from the Kentucky state line and Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area.
Later that year, they received a landfill permit from TDEC after receiving a volume of complaints from Scott County residents. Ultimately, they did not follow through with plans to develop the site, but retained the permit and continued to re-certify it each year.
In late 2019, Bearcat Properties formed in Oneida to purchase the land along with its landfill permit to finish development. In May, Knox Horner communicated his intentions to eventually acquire as much as 700 acres surrounding the parcel with which Bearcat could eventually expand the landfill.
On Wednesday, the Scott and McCreary County coalition moved to retain Lisa Helton of Nashville-based law firm Sherrard Roe Voigt & Harbison. Helton is best known for her successful representation of the City of Murfreesboro in their fight against the expansion of the Middle Point Landfill, a controversial decision which will force the closure of the state’s largest landfill by 2029.
It’s unclear whether the group intends to file suit against developers of the dump, which all coalition members agreed will be a costly venture with an uncertain outcome. Scott County Mayor Jerried Jeffries worries legal action against a major corporation could severely harm the finances of his county.
“Am I excited about a secondary landfill? No,” Jeffries said. “But my job as Scott County Mayor is to make sure that the citizens are okay, and that I make sure I avoid a lawsuit that is going to wind up drowning this county and causing more financial heartache on this county than we already have.”
But the members also agreed that time is running out. Horner spoke up at Wednesday’s meeting that TDEC has approved the recertification of the landfill permits, and that they will begin construction in September. That was enough for Huntsville Mayor Dennis Jeffers.
“We may be throwing money in the wind, but we’re gonna throw it,” he said.
The coalition will help mitigate the risk of financial loss by splitting the costs of any action they take evenly between the five governing bodies. It’s still unclear whether future meetings will be open to the public.
While residents acknowledged that more still needs to be done, some such as Winfield resident Kirk Schoopman say it’s all a step in the right direction.
“It was nice that they hear the people, and they’re willing to fight for the people,” Schoopman said. “It’s not really about the value of my land. It's about the value of my kids, and my grandkids. We’ve got a landfill, so why bring another one in to create more problems?”
