personalized shirts: Shirts tell tale at Rumpke hearing

BY CLIFF RADEL

COLERAIN TOWNSHIP - Dueling T-shirts framed Tuesday night's debate over Mount Rumpke's expansion.

As township trustees began a series of public hearings on a zoning change request that would allow the Rumpke Sanitary Landfill to expand 868 acres, they looked into the crowd at the community's senior center and saw an evenly divided audience filling an estimated 400 seats and wearing T-shirts supporting their respective sides.

Proponents of expanding the landfill - known as Mount Rumpke because it is the highest point in Hamilton County - wore shirts colored the same Rumpke red that's on the landfill's garbage trucks and touting "The Top Five Reasons Why I Support Rumpke."


Opponents to the estimated $145.5 million expansion wore personalized shirts with green lettering declaring: "Enough! No New Landfill."

Comments during the 3½-hour meeting were polite and, occasionally, pointed. During the presentation of a market study commissioned by the landfill's owner, Rumpke Consolidated Cos. Inc., Trustees Vice President Bernie Fiedeldey noted that the Northwest school district would receive less money annually in taxes if the proposed expansion becomes a reality.

Larry Riddle, the landfill's manager, noted that the township will receive $29.1 million during the planned 30-year life of the expansion. "The township could ante up some of that money to the school district," Riddle said.

The market study, presented by consultant Eric Gardner, caused the biggest stir. The study offered reasons why the township's property values are declining. As Gardner read the reasons - crime, aging population, aging housing stock, no more land to build new houses, lots of blue-collar residents - but no mention of the landfill - backs straightened. Heads shook. Voices groaned.

"Those comments amounted to economic discrimination," said Nancy Lindemood, a member of Property Owners Want Equal Rights, the citizens group opposing the landfill's expansion. The group gave the trustees petitions with nearly 400 signatures against the expansion.

Even Jeff Rumpke, the landfill's regional vice president and a lifelong township resident, told the trustees he heard the reasons and "didn't take them too well."

The trustees felt the same way. Trustee Jeff Ritter said he felt he had "tire tracks on my back."

After Rumpke's presentation, 14 audience members spoke about the expansion. Eight were in favor, six opposed.

Corman said a vote on the expansion could come in November. "But first, we want everyone to have their say."

E-mail cradel@enquirer.com