Farmer finds ‘kink in the armor’ in fight against proposed landfill

Van Weldon couldn’t find a copy of the draft permit for the proposed landfill near the Sam Houston National Forest he feared would ruin his farm.

Weldon received a letter in December saying state environmental regulators had tentatively OK’d the project to go next to his land. He’d been fighting it for months, fearing the landfill would contaminate his well water, fill the country roads with trash trucks and foul the smell of their woodsy air.

The 64-year-old farmer felt he was waging a David vs. Goliath fight. He learned about how landfills were built. He told his customers at Houston farmers markets what might happen to the area in San Jacinto County, about an hour’s drive north. Person after person spoke on his side at a virtual public meeting about the idea.

But now there was a draft permit and Weldon had 30 days to give input. He called Shepherd Public Library, where it was supposed to be, to ask about reading it. The staffer there said the library didn’t have a copy, he said. So Weldon went himself. He couldn’t find it. A friend who is also opposed to the landfill went, too. She couldn’t find it either.

Here was “a kink in the armor,” Weldon said, of the Mississippi-based company PC-II that was supposed to make the permit copy available. PC-II wants to build a 100-plus-acre municipal waste landfill next to Weldon’s Wood Duck Farm. The company says it will be a good neighbor and use appropriate measures to keep the groundwater and air clean. They promoted it as an economic boost.

But Weldon questioned: How could this company build and operate a landfill properly if they couldn’t even follow the permit application rules?

Weldon’s attorney, Bryan French, called out the lapse in a letter filed last week with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The lack of access to the draft “subverts public participation, and makes meaningful comments impossible,” French wrote. He requested that the document be made available and the time period for comment be extended, or that a second public meeting be held. (Two state representatives also requested a second meeting.)

TCEQ asked the company to do all of those things, a spokesperson confirmed Wednesday.

PC-II has posted the draft permit on its website, spokesman Ray Sullivan wrote in an email Thursday. The company also sent the information to the library and was looking into whether the library had it. (Sullivan did not immediately specify when the information was sent.)

“The draft permit is the result of rigorous scientific and environmental review and public engagement and is readily available to interested parties and the public,” Sullivan wrote, adding the site will be surrounded by trees, have a liner system to protect the groundwater beneath it and have well monitors to ensure the system is working.

Weldon’s fight was far from over. emily.foxhall@chron.com twitter.com/emfoxhall