Tag: Pam Creech

SWA Officials Voice Paranoid Reaction to Water Testing Around Landfill

Horry County Solid Waste Authority (SWA) officials evidenced a paranoid reaction to local media last week when commenting on water samples taken near the landfill for contamination testing.

SWA Executive Director Danny Knight and landfill operations head Mike Bessant both called the desire of the county Infrastructure and Regulation Committee to test the water as politically motivated.

Bessant was quoted in local media as saying those raising concerns about water quality want to “discredit the authority and try to make them look bad” and “everybody’s always after us to try to get us down.”

Knight was quoted as saying private haulers have tried to take some of the business in the county and some council members “get on the soapbox and scream.”

County council member Johnny Vaught, never one to miss a chance to be quoted in local media, was credited as saying there is a faction in Horry County that wants to dissolve the SWA.

This effort to redirect the conversation from potential water contamination near the landfill to political tactics to discredit the authority was immediately repeated by a local reporter who appears to have very little knowledge of the history of the SWA.

The SWA was created 30 years ago by county council under county Ordinance 60-90.

The first paragraph of that ordinance reads, “There is a need in Horry County to develop an acceptable alternative method of solid waste disposal and to reduce the tonnage of solid waste disposal in sanitary landfills due to the County’s high water table and other geologic characteristics that make utilization and expansion of the existing landfill and development of new landfills especially expensive and difficult.”

That is a formal way of saying dumping garbage in and around a swamp is not good public policy. Develop alternative methods for disposing of the county’s garbage.

When the authority was created, the general consensus on county council was the existing landfill had approximately seven years left until it was full. By the time that landfill was closed, the SWA would have developed plans to oversee safe and effective ways to transfer and dispose of the garbage elsewhere, presumably in landfills in other parts of the state.

Questions Surrounding the HCSWA Board Member Elections

Nothing is ever simple and straightforward when it involves the Horry County Solid Waste Authority (HCSWA) Board of Directors.

Last Tuesday, Horry County Council voted to appoint two members to the HCSWA board from among three nominated candidates. Two of the candidates, current board chairman Pam Creech and vice chairman Norfleet Jones, were incumbents. Candidate Sam Johnson was the outsider in the voting.

Creech was reelected by a majority of council members. However, Johnson and Jones tied in two successive votes with six each. After the first vote, Creech was named to remain on the board by council chairman Mark Lazarus who proceeded to hold a second ballot with just Jones and Johnson competing for one opening, against the advice of Horry County Attorney Arrigo Carotti.

Jones and Johnson tied with six votes each on both ballots.

Lazarus announced the second opening on the HCSWA board would be filled by council vote during council’s regular May 16, 2017 meeting. However, Lazarus stated nominations for the second position would remain open adding an additional question mark to the process.

The voting, however, only showed minor problems compared to what transpired before the vote.

On April 28, 2017, Esther Murphy, HCSWA’s Director of Recycling and Corporate Affairs sent an email to Horry County Council Clerk Pat Hartley with copies to all 12 members of county council as well as HCSWA Executive Director Danny Knight, Creech and Jones.

The email began, “Board member Norfleet Jones asked that we contact you regarding his term on the Solid Waste Authority Board, which ends on June 30, 2017. Mr. Jones indicated he would be completing his first term and would like to be reappointed to the Board for a second term…”

HCSWA Losing Money on Charleston Recyclables

Four months into a contract to process Charleston County recyclables at its material recovery facility, the Horry County Solid Waste Authority is losing money.

When the contract was being negotiated back in the summer and when it was presented to Horry County Council, the Charleston County deal was estimated to bring in $1 million per year in profits to the HCSWA.

Instead, the HCSWA is on track to lose at least that much by the end of the fiscal year.

Over the last two months (October and November) when all costs including trucking are reported, the HCSWA is losing approximately $125,000 per month.

The major reason appears to be false assumptions on how much of the incoming tonnage of recyclables would be sold.

In October and November, the total amount of recyclables arriving at the MRF was 4,386 and 4,238 respectively. The tons sold in those months were 2801 in October and 2,430 in November.

This left unsold recyclable tonnage of 3,383 (39% of the total) over the two months. The assumptions during the summer were that approximately 14.5% of incoming tonnage would be unsold residuals.

Horry County Council told the HCSWA it didn’t want any Charleston County trash to go into the HCSWA landfill. The HCSWA told council it would send an equivalent amount of construction and demolition debris (equal to the Charleston residual amount) out of the county.

According to sources familiar with the processing, approximately 700 total tons of C&D debris was sent to a landfill in Marion County in October and November. This leaves approximately 2,683 tons of residuals unaccounted for.

It is impossible to tell just how much residual tonnage is attributable to Charleston because Charleston County and Horry County recyclables are mixed when they arrive at the MRF.