Thursday, October 28, 1999
BFI withdraws landfill bid
Firm removes Morrow re-zoning application
BY MICHAEL D. CLARK
The Cincinnati Enquirer
MORROW — A long, often-bitter battle over a proposed landfill for this Warren County village may have come to a sudden halt Wednesday when a waste disposal company withdrew its re-zoning application.
Browning-Ferris Industries of Ohio Inc. (BFI) officials told Morrow Village officials they have canceled their participation in tonight's village plan ning commission meeting.
BFI officials also notified village officials that they have withdrawn their re-zoning application for a proposed landfill at the site of the former Alpine Ski Resort in Morrow.
BFI attorney C. Francis Barrett declined to explain why BFI withdrew its application or whether the recent purchase of the waste company by Allied Waste Industries of Scottsdale, Ariz., has changed BFI's strategy. The company had aggressively pursued both a new landfill in Morrow and an expansion of the Bigfoot Run landfill in nearby Union Township.
But Morrow officials, anti-landfill activists and Warren County Commissioners were surprised and gratified by the unexpected development.
“It's dramatic,” said Mor row Mayor Vic Center. “It's probably the best news we've had in 21/2 years.”
He referred to the previous legal, political and public opinion battles BFI has waged to create a landfill on 222 acres of undeveloped land at the Alpine site.
“It means an abrupt increase in property values,” he said of the village of more than 1,300 residents.
Warren Reed, president of the Morrow Environmental Preservation Association (MEPA), reacted to BFI's withdrawal by calling it “the salvation of Morrow.”
“I'm elated they have finally pulled out. If that landfill had gone into Morrow ... the village would not have survived it. It would have been an envi
ronmental disaster,” said Mr. Reed, whose anti-landfill group has battled both the proposed Morrow landfill and BFI's efforts to expand the Bigfoot Run landfill, which reached capacity and closed in May.
The Bigfoot Run landfill was the last operating waste site in the county. BFI officials had previously stated their interest in maintaining at least one operating landfill in Warren County.
Officials for Allied Waste, which purchased BFI in September, were unavailable for comment.
Though Warren County Commissioners were not directly involved with BFI's efforts in Morrow — the local village handles its own zoning regulation — they speculated that BFI's withdraw may reflect Allied Waste's diminished interest in taking on BFI's long-running legal battles.
After BFI's rezoning application to expand Bigfoot Run was rejected in December by Warren County commissioners, the waste disposal company filed a lawsuit against the commissioners alleging their application was not treated fairly.
“Maybe Allied is not willing to be the aggressive landfill operator in this area that BFI wanted to be,” said Warren County Commissioner Pat Arnold South. “My high hopes are that they will now withdraw from the lawsuit. All we can do is wait and see.”
Neither Mr. Barrett, nor attorneys for the county, reported any change in BFI's Bigfoot Run landfill lawsuit against commissioners, which is pending in Warren County Common Pleas Court.
Ms. South said BFI's withdrawing of their Morrow re-zoning application was not the result of any negotiations between county commissioners and BFI.
She said there had been some meetings between county and BFI attorneys prior to Allied Waste's purchase of BFI in September but there have been no meetings and little contact since.
In 1997, Morrow Village Council passed an emergency ordinance that negated an initial BFI landfill zoning application. BFI officials said that action was also unfair. BFI then filed a lawsuit against Morrow officials.
The village ordinance cited in that lawsuit was later rejected in a partial decision rendered in 1998 by a Warren County judge.
Currently, the Morrow Planning Commission had been considering a new BFI rezoning application for the same site at the former Alpine Ski resort.
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