The community in which a person lives, where a person calls home, is worth protecting. For some, that might mean fighting crime. Maybe it means fighting higher taxes. For others, it means protecting the very land that their community is built upon.
This is where fighting the addition of landfills can come into play. Some people do not want a landfill around their community that they call home. They might have worries regarding the quality of the air, water, soil and the quality of their health. Recently, a county put up a persistent and effective fight to prevent the addition of a landfill in the community.
This landfill battle was a battle of zoning ordinances. It got even more legally technical by the company who wanted to add the landfill, Atlantic Waste Services. The company argued that the law being used to thwart its goal to build a landfill was unconstitutional. In the lawsuit against the county, the company claimed that current ordinances basically allowed no opportunity for the construction of a landfill in the county.
The zoning case went to the Georgia Supreme Court after Atlantic Waste Services was disappointed by a lower court’s ruling. Despite the persistence of the company to challenge the zoning laws and build a Georgia landfill, they failed again to convince the court that any constitutional rights were being violated in this land matter.
Environmental regulations are in place that are meant to prevent landfills from endangering the land and health of those around it. Still, a community has a right to fight for the land use that it sees fit for its people and future.
Source: Savannah Morning News, “Georgia Supreme Court dismisses Atlantic Waste Services lawsuit,” Steve Scholar, July 18, 2013