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The original plan was to hold a public hearing this week in Cumberland County, so residents would have a chance to voice their concerns about the proposed Green Ridge landfill. However, due to a combination of Old Man Winter and paperwork, that’s not happening. Instead, the scheduled Green Ridge public hearing will take place April 21. 

“Originally that was going to be held in February, but that meeting was canceled,” Cumberland Planning Director Stephany Johnson told the board on Tuesday, March 11. 

Basically, the February meeting of the Cumberland planning commission was canceled due to weather, as snow and ice made for unsafe travel conditions. That meant the scheduled public hearing had to be officially rescheduled and a date voted on. While the planning commission did hold a joint session back on March 3 with the board of supervisors, no vote was taken.

That means it has to be done at the official March planning commission meeting, which took place on Monday, March 17. The public hearing can’t be held on the same day as the request to set the meeting. Instead, it’s moved to the next scheduled session. For the planning commission, that will be on Monday, April 21. 

About the Green Ridge landfill project

So, to be clear, Green Ridge doesn’t have approval yet for their “initial phase”. That’s what the current set of workshops and planned public hearings is for. That initial phase would only have 104 acres out of the 1,177 acre site available for active dumping. That’s down from 650 acres in the original plan. 

But that doesn’t mean it would permanently be that size. Right now, Green Ridge doesn’t have the permits needed to build on or disturb wetlands, creeks and streams. Will Shewmake, an attorney with Woods Rogers, said in the Feb. 10 workshop if the company does get those permits, things would expand. 

That expansion would mean a jump from 104 acres to 350 total acres available for garbage disposal. It would also mean a significant increase in the size of the garbage mounds. The current application being considered by Cumberland allows trash to pile up to 140 feet above ground level. If Green Ridge gets to expand, they could go up to 225 feet above ground level. The biggest increase would be in the amount of trash brought in. The current application limits that to 1,500 tons of garbage a day. The expansion would allow them to haul in 3,500 tons per day. It would also increase the number of nearby homes impacted. With this “initial phase”, there are 37 houses within a half mile of the disposal area. With expansion, that would climb to 58 homes. 

But what does that translate to? What would the maximum capacity of this landfill be, District 1 Supervisor Bryan Hamlet asked back in the March 3 joint session. At full build-out, he was told, if everything is approved, it would be 30 million cubic yards. The tons in a cubic yard vary, depending on the density of the material, but the average is roughly 1.65 tons per cubic yard.