Dooly County agrees to state consent order for landfill closure, funds assessment and monitoring

Dooly County’s municipal sanitary landfill missed the state-mandated Dec. 30, 1998 closure deadline. At its Feb. 4, 1999 meeting Solid Waste Director Wayne Lamb told commissioners the State proposed a Consent Order requiring compliance within 180 days and imposing a $3,000 monthly penalty for any continued noncompliance. The Board voted to execute the Consent Order and authorized county staff to proceed under the timeline.

County staff awaited the results of soil testing; if tests were favorable the final step would be grass establishment over the site, while negative results would require additional remediation. In the spring and summer the Board coordinated with the Environmental Protection Division (EPD) of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources to manage storm debris from the April 15 tornado; EPD temporarily allowed use of remaining municipal solid-waste capacity for construction and demolition debris from the storm and approved a $13,915 scrap-tire cleanup grant for disposal of roughly 121 tons of scrap tires.

Later in the year county staff and Advanced Environmental Management (AEM) prepared a Contaminant Assessment Plan (CAP) after EPD required verification that the landfill was not contaminating groundwater. The Board accepted AEM’s proposal (approximately $20,840) to complete the CAP work, including groundwater monitoring well installation, soil and water sampling, lab analysis and reporting. The CAP and monitoring steps were recorded in public minutes and the Board’s votes were noted in the record; one recorded vote on accepting AEM’s proposal shows a 4–1 split.