More than a month after its sister communities in the Tri-Cities raised their collective voices in protest, St. Charles has joined the opposition to the expansion of the Settler’s Hill Landfill in Geneva.
The City Council this week approved a resolution calling on Kane County to limit the height of the garbage dump to the figure specified in a 1987 agreement with the landfill operator, WMX Technologies, formerly Waste Management.
The resolution also asks the county to specify a future date when the landfill will stop collecting additional trash and will close permanently.
“Something like a closing should not be left to the whims of some future board,” said St. Charles Mayor Fred Norris. “That has to be written now into a binding contract.”
WMX Technologies has applied to state and county authorities to expand the 300-acre dump at Fabyan Parkway and Kirk Road by another seven acres and extend the life of the landfill until at least 2012, five years after the closing date set in the 1987 agreement.
The proposed expansion has angered residents and officials in the Tri-Cities. Batavia and Geneva City Councils passed resolutions opposing the plan last September.
Meanwhile, a citizens group has formed-calling itself Residents Against Settler’s Hill Landfill Expansion-and has scheduled a rally at 9 a.m. Saturday outside the facility.
“That dump has been there for 26 years and we’ve had enough,” said Carol Farmer, the group’s coordinator.
