Huntersville approves Greenway Waste landfill expansion with conditions, requires state permits and remediation steps

The Huntersville Town Board voted unanimously Oct. 21 to approve a special use permit and a related conditional rezoning (R25-09) allowing Greenway Waste Solutions to infill a valley at its Holbrooks Road construction-and-demolition landfill, relocate an on-site stream and continue operations under a set of conditions and permitting requirements.

The board’s action follows a quasi‑judicial hearing in which the applicant presented technical evidence — including groundwater and flood modeling, a corrective action plan addendum addressing 1,4‑dioxane and PFAS, and approvals or reviews by state and federal agencies — and expert testimony from hydrogeologists, remediation specialists and an independent appraiser.

Why it matters: The application touches on public‑health, environmental and land‑use issues in and near the Pottstown neighborhood. The town’s decision allows the operator to consolidate active fill within the existing landfill footprint while conditioning expansion on outside approvals and remediation steps intended to limit further groundwater impacts and to reduce truck traffic on Holbrooks Road.

What the board approved and required - The board approved the special use permit (SUP25‑1) and the rezoning R25‑09 with conditions tied to the SUP. Approval was unanimous. - Conditions require the operator to obtain all applicable permits from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) and other agencies before beginning the expansion. The town’s finding explicitly ties the SUP to those outside permits. - The applicant must submit and implement a DEQ‑approved corrective action plan addendum. That plan, as described in testimony, includes installation of a permeable reactive barrier (PRB) and injection‑based bioremediation to address detected 1,4‑dioxane and PFAS, plus additional monitoring wells in the southern area to improve “monitorability” of the relocated stream and groundwater. - The application includes a geosynthetic base liner and an engineered cap for the infill area; the town’s approval requires that those landfill construction techniques meet NCDEQ standards and that any off‑site treatment pathway be secured (for example, off‑site…