There is nothing like a good ol’ fashioned landfill controversy to keep the news mill filled. Let’s start back at the beginning with Cassandra Favre’s account of the April 2, 2019 Board of Supervisor’s meeting for the Sea Coast Echo:
The Hancock County Board of Supervisors on Monday voted 3-2 to deny Boudin’s Environmental Waste’s request to upgrade the dump site on Rifle Range Road to a Class One.
On Feb. 12, the Hancock County Solid Waste Authority hosted a public hearing and later, unanimously approved the application and amendment to the solid waste management plan.
What’s interesting here is the fact that Board of Supervisor President Blaine Lafontaine voted to allow the Class One Rubbish site as a then member of the Solid Waste Authority. He would late change his point of view on the issue when it came before him again at the Board of Supervisor’s meeting. There are a couple of other snippets that need further color:
According to an MDEQ report, LaFontaine said, statewide there has been a 22 percent increase in out-of-state rubbish in the past five years.
King Landfill is the only current active site in Hancock County, LaFontaine said. Over the past five years, the site went from receiving 22,000 tons to 18,000 tons and 11,000 from out-of-state down to 5,000, he said.
LaFontaine said that the question before the board is, “is there a need in Hancock County?” He said that maybe the only thing the board could look at as a “need” would be competitive pricing.
MDEQ recommends there be two Class One sites in the county, one in the north end and one in the south end. The site Boudin wants to operate is close to the south side, LaFontaine said.
Gotta give Cassandra props here because her account of the political crawfishin’ is a good depiction of the events that day. First Lafontaine bobs by citing a statewide factoid that, even if true, is not an accurate picture of the reality in Hancock County, which has seen a pretty steep decline in out of state trash. The third paragraph tells the tale because the three Sups that voted against the recommendation of the Solid Waste Authority were really more interested in protecting the existing landfill monopoly in Hancock Parish than fostering price competition and creating new jobs. District 1 Sup David Yarborough summed it up: Continue reading “Bill of Exceptions Update: Boudin Environmental v Hancock Sups”