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To The Editor:

Green Ridge Recycling and Disposal is getting closer to state approval of a mega landfill in Cumberland County and is trying hard to put a favorable spin on the project through a series of press releases in local newspapers. But the age-old question “What do you have after you’ve perfumed a pig?” is a valid question in this case. The answer is, of course, “A pig.”

Looking at the Green Ridge project from 30,000 feet, what do you see?

A multinational company (Green Ridge) approaches a small rural community and offers them a pot of gold to pay off debts and fix stuff that resulted from poor county management.

Wow, money just fell into the bank. What a gift. In exchange, the multinational company is allowed to buy a large plot of pristine land (1,200 acres) to build a dump and offers a few homeowners money for their homes and to keep their mouths shut, which they gladly accept.

Then the multinational company gets an OK from the state, and it digs a big hole 35 feet deep where it spread some clay material, pipes and a 1/16” rubber-like material (thickness of a pool liner) and starts to fill the hole with the waste from households 500 miles away. Filling the hole is accomplished by half-a-thousand trucks a day delivering the waste throughout the night on rural country roads where noise, air, light and water pollution create problems for thousands of residents for miles around.

Local hunting of deer, rabbit and squirrel no longer exists and vermin like sea gulls and rodents feed on the abundant leftovers of our once good life. This process continues for 30 years or possibly longer if the additional portion of purchased land is pressed into service. Then what started as a 35-foot hole is now a 200- to 300-foot mountain of trash that is covered with some man-made material and ultimately with dirt. The mountain remains for a thousand years, the contaminants in the mountain leach into soil for millennia, and the multinational company moves on to offer a pot of gold to another money-hungry, unsuspecting, poorly-managed county.

For this we are supposed to be grateful. At this point it might be suggested that Green Ridge stop shining a light on itself and pontificating at the gifts being bestowed on the county and stop trying to put a positive spin on a very unwanted, unneeded and unhealthy business, as it isn’t helping their cause.

Just my opinion.

Donald Silberbauer

Powhatan10