Asbestos Dump’s Neighbors Log Parade of Interstate Trash Trucks

CENTER POINT, Ind. —  A great blue heron feeds in the morning mist along the wooded shore of a strip-mine lake.

Not far away are observers with binoculars, cameras and video cameras. But it’s not the heron they’re watching, it is dozens of interstate trash trucks rumbling up to the Center Point Landfill to feed the earth-movers whose drone shatters the idyll half a mile from the lake.

This “dump patrol” of teachers, miners, teen-agers and retirees was organized by Terri Moore, who sees her dream of a quiet, rural life style being threatened by a mountain of garbage from the East Coast.

“Until the out-of-state waste stops, we’re going to be out here,” said Moore, 33, whose troops have logged the arrival of nearly 1,200 truckloads of garbage from 140 companies in the 11 weeks since they started keeping track.

The landfill operators call it harassment. “I have a substantial investment in the landfill. I’m not going to be doing anything to jeopardize that,” said John R. Hoffman, a New Jersey businessman who is a partner in the Center Point landfill and other dumps near Peru and Wabash.

Moore says the group is keeping records so that should a cleanup be needed, officials will be able to get the names they need by tracing the license numbers on the trash trucks.

John and Terri Moore and their family moved into their home on 25 acres outside this western Indiana town 2 1/2 years ago. Both were raised in the area, and they wanted their children to grow up here, too, near the five-acre lake and its herons, geese and other wildlife.

“It was our dream house. We knew in life we couldn’t ask for anything more. It was like having a vacation every night,” Moore said.

Then, one day last year, John came home from work with the news that developers were proposing a landfill on the property adjacent to theirs, a few hundred feet from their lake and across the road from Center Point Landfill.

Moore became concerned that toxins from the site could leak through abandoned mine shafts into the lake on their property. Last October, she organized HOPE (Hoosiers Opposing Pollution of the Environment) and tried to reach all of about 750 people who live within two miles of the dump. She says that about 60% of the families now are members.

“I got people upset. I got people concerned and worried,” she said. She also got them to support zoning changes that stopped the landfill plan.

That, however, turned out to be an empty victory.

Last November, Center Point Landfill got a state permit to accept asbestos, the carcinogenic insulation material that is being removed from older buildings across the country. Center Point also began taking limited amounts of trash from other states.

The landfill’s neighbors objected.

Robert Bedwell Jr., whose family owned the site, said some people called state officials to report suspicions of infractions that were unfounded. He began negotiating with Hoffman and his partners, who bought the land in July.

Since then, trucks carrying out-of-state trash have been rolling into Center Point. Some days, as many as 30 trucks queue up at the dump, motor to the top of a hill and unload tons of garbage to be buried by the bulldozers.

“We knew the landfill was sold, and then one morning, we saw 30 or 40 trucks were going by. That kind of made all of our nightmares come true,” Moore said.

“I don’t see how our state officials can have this go on,” said Forest Reece, a 78-year-old retired custodian and factory worker. “My God, I think it’s horrible!”

Apparently, Indiana can do little. Federal law forbids one state to refuse to accept trash from another state. The Solid Waste Management Board has given preliminary approval to a plan for keeping track of shipments, but it faces public hearings and other steps before it goes into effect.

Bedwell, 37, began taking out-of-state garbage a year ago in anticipation of competition from the proposed new landfill across the road. He began taking asbestos, he said, because it offered an opportunity for the family business to grow.

“I didn’t take anything hazardous,” he said, adding that his asbestos operation met the highest state and federal requirements. Bedwell said he tried to talk to members of HOPE and show them how the landfill operated, but, “They didn’t want to see. They wanted to stand by the road and imagine it.

“I went to school with these people. Now they won’t even talk to me. These people used to be my friends. It hurts. It hurts real bad.”

Neither Bedwell nor Hoffman would say how much was paid for the landfill, but records show that Hoffman’s group came up with an initial payment of $2.7 million.

Hoffman, a 13-year veteran of landfill operations, said that without the out-of-state business, his landfills would barely get by. He said half the refuse accepted at Center Point comes from other states.

“This is a privately owned business. We have space to sell,” he said. “To run a good operation, you need income.”

The landfill has 12 employees and an annual payroll of $350,000. It will pump about $1 million into the local economy over the next 12 months, he said. “I think that’s a very good neighbor.”

Hoffman also said the landfill is not hazardous and, like his operations near Wabash and Peru, takes no waste it is not permitted to accept. “That particular landfill is probably the best geologically sited in the state of Indiana.”

The neighbors’ fears about asbestos are unfounded, he said. While airborne particles of asbestos are dangerous, he said, it “has zero chance of getting into the ground water. It is not mobile in soil.”

Hoffman acknowledged that HOPE’s presence will probably help him run the landfill better. He said he has tried to work with the group, and called Terri Moore shortly after he took over, but she wasn’t interested in seeing the operation firsthand.

Now, Hoffman said, he has no more time for Moore or the group. “You cannot deal with these people rationally. I can’t be distracted by them. They’re interested in closing the landfill, true and simple.”

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) has said that he will use photographs taken by Moore and her patrol to convince Congress that the practice of transporting trash and food in the same trucks should be outlawed.

Smith said he will introduce legislation to bar refrigerated trucks from also hauling waste, to prohibit waste haulers from moving food, and require truck-cleaning procedures at landfills. Moore sent Smith pictures of refrigerated trucks unloading garbage at the landfill during the summer.