NewsChannel5.com | Nashville News, Weather & SportsResidents Frown at Company's Pushes for Mountain-top Landfill

Residents Frown at Company's Pushes for Mountain-top Landfill

SMITH MOUNTAIN, Tenn.- "Not in my backyard"  is the cry from people on top of the mountain where a company wants to build a landfill.

This is no ordinary landfill. It would be filled with left over ash from a TVA power plant.

David Brundage built the Black Cat Lodge and the cabins around it for people recovering from drug and alcohol addictions. His property is near the summit of Smith Mountain in Cumberland County.

"I've been here for about three years. It's just a beautiful place. It's waterfalls, ponds, nature," said Brubdade.

 But Brundage says that could all come to an end.

"My concern is everything I've built, everything I have here is going to be gone," he explained,

A local company is proposing a dry coal ash landfill at an old coal mine at the top of the mountain.

The ash would come from the TVA's Kingston steam plant in neighboring Roane County. It's the same plant that experienced a disastrous ash spill last December. Cumberland County commissioners approved this new plan including Commissioner Lynn Tollett.

"I call it the Good Neighbor Plan.  We've got a problem.  We've got a place to put it.  We can help out and we're going to gain some income at a time when the economy is not what it ought to be," said Tollett.

Tollett says the county stands to gain up to $8 million dollars over three years in fees. He says the reclamation project will improve the mine and the environment around it.

He says road improvements will allow covered dump trucks haul dry ash up the mountain to the landfill.

But Brundage and other neighbors don't believe enough can be done to make the winding mountain road safe. He and more than a dozen neighbors filed a lawsuit over the summer to stop the project.

"We're concerned about truck traffic on the road and the impact on property values," said Brundage.

In the end Brundage hopes the only rehabilitation on Smith Mountain happens on his property and not the coal mine. 

Cumberland County isn't alone when it comes to landfill controversies. There's now a push for Anderson County to become a new dump site for low-level, radioactive soil from a closed plutonium plant in New York. The U.S. Department of Energy is pushing this idea.