Jim Lindemood
COLERAIN TWP — Ah, beautiful Colerain. Colerain?? Yes, Colerain Township is a beautiful place. It retains its rural atmosphere, with all the urban amenities and is home to many small businesses. It is a great, economically diverse, family community with its schools, churches and parks. Best of all, it has lots of wooded areas with big trees and abundant wildlife. Yes, it is beautiful. Oh, and it has Rumpke Sanitary Landfill.
Nineteen years ago, my wife and I recognized the beauty of Colerain and decided we would like to build a house here. We found a really beautiful wooded lot and checked out the area more thoroughly. Yes, Rumpke was in the township, but due diligence indicated that the landfill had 7 yrs of remaining capacity — that was 19 years ago. We could see the landfill’s footprint and elevation. It was nothing like it is today. What happened? One word — Expansion!
It expanded horizontally and vertically. It grew to be the highest elevation in Southwest Ohio and in size, one of the largest landfills in the country – all within a community. While managing the landfill utilizing “current best practices”, they have had a landslide with a fire, been cited for contaminating a creek that feeds the Great Miami River, been cited for accepting hazardous material, and now have an ongoing underground fire of unknown origin and no end in sight.
These events have been accompanied by increased odors. Now, that word “expansion” comes up again. Rumpke wants to expand 350 additional acres — moving even closer to family homes and schools. This expansion would add 70 years of capacity to the existing landfill. They have a publicity campaign that leads citizens and politicians of Hamilton County to believe that if they can’t expand, there will be garbage piling up in the streets. That is just not going to happen, but they have effectively convinced folks that it will. Enough is enough. The citizens of Colerain have borne the burden long enough. Let Colerain Township remain beautiful.
— Jim Lindemood, Colerain Township neighbor
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