Talking Trash

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP - After 50 years of service the Celina Sanitary Landfill is closing, and Thomas Jutte, the man who opened the only landfill in Mercer County, reminisced on its history.

Before the landfill, and the state's 1967 passage of solid waste disposal laws, a number of open air dumps operated in Mercer and Auglaize counties, Jutte recalled. In fact, he had owned one.

The 1967 regulations - which mandated trash could not be burned, needed daily cover and accessibility and that operators take into account the location of wells and quality of dirt - were passed following an incident when gas from a dump migrated about a mile to a school in east Cleveland, Jutte said.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency website states that prior to the 1967 law, "there were more than 1,300 smelly, unsightly, rat-infested open dumps in Ohio." In their place came "licensed, highly engineered" landfills.

Though it was supposed to be an improvement, the opening of a landfill in the county was still controversial, Jutte said.

When Jutte and his wife, Vivian, first bought the 61-acre Stanley Wendel farm that would become the Celina Sanitary Landfill, neighbors and other county residents were not pleased.

Members of an anti-pollution association and other groups opposed the construction of any county landfill, including the one proposed by Jutte. Nearby residents feared the landfill would pollute surface water and wells and reduce the quality of their lives and the value of their properties. They attempted to block its operation by taking the matter to the courts.

Louis Hierholzer, a president of one group opposed to the landfill, told the newspaper in 1971, "This (landfill) is everyone's problem because the garbage will come from all over the county."

Jutte noted that even influential friends and community members didn't want to promote a landfill in the county, despite the need for waste disposal solutions. To this day, he believes every county should have its own waste disposal site.

"It's got to find a home somewhere," Jutte said. "And it's important."

The first day the landfill opened for business was July 9, 1971, and Jutte still remembers receiving the first load of trash from the now closed Huffy bicycle plant in Celina.

Industry groups appreciated the much-needed service of the landfill, Jutte said, and he recalled that as one of the better parts of the business.

Working in garbage can tell you a surprising amount about the state of businesses, including which ones are going through hard times, he said. During a recession in the 80s, the economy got so bad that industrial waste dropped off 50%, Jutte said. He learned to appreciate the business from small operations and private homes in those days.

Interestingly, he said he had village contracts for trash service but never in Mercer County. Trash from Minster, New Bremen, New Knoxville, Fort Loramie and Jackson Center found its home in Mercer County. Jutte said Mercer County municipalities didn't want to make trash disposal a mandatory utility charge. Even paying for individual trash bags was hard for people to get used to, Jutte said.

One of the bad parts of the business, though, was the treatment garbage truck workers were subjected to - and are sometimes still subjected to - by the homeowners they served. The workers provide a necessary and important service, and have families they're trying to support, same as anybody, Jutte said.

Not long after its first day open, a court trial commenced, with activist groups seeking to halt operations. Still, the landfill endured for half a century, even as it changed ownership over the years. Jutte was involved in the operation of the landfill for eight years before he left and started a different company.

Republic Services, the final operators of the Celina Sanitary Landfill, recently decided to close the site. According to the company, it had been used to dispose of roughly 3.7 million tons of waste during its lifespan.

There reportedly are no immediate plans for the site beyond fulfilling post-closure care requirements, including monitoring of surface water, landfill gas and groundwater. Different municipalities in Mercer County have put in place different waste-disposal company contracts since the news of the site's pending closure, with some contracts reportedly seeing waste hauled to the Jay County Landfill in Portland, Indiana.

"The unfortunate thing is that it has to find another home, and it will. The EPA really don't care. They don't care about fuel savings and all that. They want to stick their hand out in the site and collect their revenue," Jutte said. "If there's (nothing) here, you're just going to have to go farther and farther and farther."

If each county had its own landfill or disposal facility, costs would likely differ due to volume, but Jutte believes it's what each county should have. Keeping garbage out of sight and out of mind is not the solution people think it is.

"It's not nice now - 'Oh boy, we're glad they're gone!' You still got trash," Jutte said.