Enough, already
By ERIC MEYER
Hoch Publishing Co. Inc.
If we don't watch out, we're going to have to start paying Wichita to haul away all the verbal trash that's being tossed around Marion over landfill-related issues.
And lest you misunderstand our point: The trash-talk we're talking about isn't coming from one side or the other. It's coming from all quarters and involving more plans than just a once-upon-a-time plan to locate a landfill northeast of Marion.
How did we get in this mess anyway?
A few months ago, the city commission voted to conduct what was billed from the start as a non-binding, advisory referendum. It wanted to get a sense of how much public support there was for or against the northeast-of-town landfill proposal — which, ironically enough, already had been withdrawn by the company proposing it.
Maybe having an election over a moot issue was a waste of money. Maybe it wasn't. At least it gave people a chance to voice their opinions about the issue, even if we knew going in that all the talking would ultimately be, for lack of a proposal, meaningless.
Basically, it was an attempt to clear the air. And people on both sides seemed to embrace the opportunity, doing such things as scheduling community forums, posting signs and otherwise partaking in the process.
The election was conducted a couple of weeks ago. Turnout was about the same as might be expected in any other city election. Each position received several hundred votes out of a possible vote total well over a thousand. In the end, opponents recorded about a hundred more votes than did supporters.
There are as many ways to interpret the results as there are people in the city.
One side sees this a clear public repudiation of any landfill plan. They demand that the words "non-binding" be ignored and that the city permanently commit itself to never considering any landfill proposal whatsoever, even one that might differ substantially from the now-withdrawn plan that started the controversy.
Another group, stretching credibility a tad, interprets the results as a clear endorsement of a completely different plan — a yet-to-be-unveiled proposal being drafted by an appointed group from four counties. Some in this camp seem to think the vote indicated support for a different type of landfill — one more distant from Marion, that would not accept trash from Wichita, that would be run with supervision from some group other than state, and that would be based on land other than a particular parcel owned by a particular local resident.
Still another group sees the relatively normal turnout as evidence that people really aren't excited one way or the other about the issue. Their view is that general opposition to landfills edged out support for a specific landfill proposal, exactly as would be expected in an election devoid of widespread fervor on either side of the issue.
Our intention is not to label one view as right and the others as wrong. There undoubtedly are other ways to interpret the election, and someone will probably point them out after reading this.
What we're trying to draw attention to is one inescapable point: The election is over. No plan is under consideration. No proposal to build a landfill exists. The question is moot. It's time to get on with other business.
If someday another proposal is made, there will be plenty of time to trot out these arguments and hash out exactly what should or should not be done with whatever old or new proposal might or might not exist at that time.
Now is not the time to be thinking about the northeast-of-Marion landfill proposal. Now is the time to be thinking about the old south-of-Marion landfill and about a possible four-county landfill that, according to rumor, might be located in northwest Marion County.
The current spate of wildly untrue accusations about elected officials being on the take and citizen activists being emotionally unstable have obscured three very vital points about plans that aren't abandoned but remain under active consideration:
1. It seems increasingly likely that some sort of new or reopened landfill will exist somewhere in or near Marion County, whether we like it or not. The courts or an appointed four-county group seem poised to force this decision upon us, and we won't get the luxury of another advisory election to voice our views.
2. Wherever this new or reopened landfill is, it's going to cost Marion County taxpayers a lot of money. In fact, it may cost us as much money as the rejected northeast-of-Marion proposal would have brought in.
3. Like the rest of the solid-waste situation in the county, the county's current recycling and transfer station agreements are all fouled up. They, too, hold tremendous potential to significantly add to the cost to taxpayers.
There seem to be no rules to this solid-waste game, but if we may be so bold, we'd like to propose one: a Golden Rule, if you will, governing landfill siting:
A landfill is a landfill, wherever it is.
Just because the site might be nearer someone else's home than yours doesn't make it any safer. It doesn't become more perilous the closer it gets to your home and the farther it gets from someone else's.
Any landfill should be as safe as is humanly possible regardless of its location. The quality of life of a lone farm family should be given just as much weight as the quality of life of a whole gaggle of 1861 original émigrés to Marion. If the landfill is in anyone's neighborhood, it's in all of our neighborhoods.
The flip side, of course, is also true. Once it's determined that a proposed landfill would be as safe and clean as humanly possible — posing no more a threat than any other industry — we no longer have a reason to care whether what goes into the landfill is our own local trash, whether it is trash forced upon us by three bigger counties to our north and west, or whether it is trash that one very-much-bigger county to our south pays us to take.
Safe is safe. If it's safe enough for our trash, why should we turn down the opportunity to profit by taking some other area's trash, as well?
Finally, if it's safe at the start, we need to make sure it stays safe to the end.
That means regulation by top-notch professionals who have made safe landfill management more than just a hobby or a part-time adjunct of their local public service. It wasn't the state or private enterprise that screwed up the old landfill south of Marion. It was well-meaning local officials who took over responsibility for it — and unintentionally left future generations of taxpayers holding the bag.
It's time to stop talking trash and bury our bitterness before the mounds of discarded rhetoric obscure the real issues at hand.
