ShawneeDispatch.com

Shawnee is looking forward to a big financial boon by agreeing to live with 16 more years of occasional bad smells and wayward pieces of trash.

On Monday, the City Council approved extending the life of the Johnson County Landfill from 2027 to 2043. In exchange for the city’s blessing to prolong landfill operations, Deffenbaugh Industries is agreeing to pay Shawnee higher impact fees.

Those fees, Mayor Jeff Meyers said, are expected to rake in more than $100 million for the city over the remaining life of the landfill.

Shawnee had expected to receive about $300,000 from Deffenbaugh this year but now will get an additional $200,000. Five years from now, annual revenues from the impact fee will be $3 million and counting.

“This is new revenue coming to the city without raising taxes,” Meyers said. “I’m thrilled.”

Earlier predictions estimated the landfill, located at Interstate 435 and Holliday Drive, would reach its capacity and shut down by 2027.

However, the landfill is filling up much slower than expected, more recent studies revealed.

The sluggish economy is yielding significantly less construction waste, and people are recycling much more. Also, technology for compacting trash has improved.

Even though some residents would prefer it disappear from their backyards, the landfill can’t be closed until it’s full, said Pete Heaven, an attorney for Deffenbaugh. Eventually the city wants to cover it and redevelop the land, which requires enough trash to bring the landfill level with the ground.

“Until then, you have a crater, and that’s what you don’t want,” Heaven said.

Landfill operations at the site have been going on since the 1950s, according to a city staff report. Through the years, requests to expand the landfill — the council approved the most recent one in 2002 — met strong opposition from residents.

Heaven said Deffenbaugh has addressed many of their objections.

“We have come so far in terms of odor control and litter control, we have very few complaints,” Heaven said. “We try to be the very best neighbor we can be.”

Heaven said it was impossible to pinpoint the economic impact the landfill has on the city of Shawnee.

However, he said, Deffenbaugh employs about 700 people involved with the landfill, many of whom live and shop in Shawnee. Deffenbaugh also pays property taxes on the 867-acre site that benefit the city and its schools.

The impact fee is designed to help the city offset the undesirable effects of heavy truck traffic on its streets, revenue lost by inability to develop the landfill’s acreage and undesirable odors, noise and aesthetics.

The development agreement and ordinance the council approved on Monday raise the impact fee the city imposed in 2002.

The increase will be phased in over the next five years until Deffenbaugh is paying $4,000 per acre annually on 772 acres, or about $3 million. The ordinance calls for 3 percent increases every five years after that.

When the landfill closes, the city will charge Deffenbaugh $2,000 per acre annually throughout the state-required post-closure monitoring period.

Meyers, who now lives just a mile from the landfill, said he strongly opposed expanding the landfill several years ago.

Among other things, he said, the city received little financial benefit under the agreement at the time and odor problems plagued the surrounding area.

“That changed,” Meyers said.

David Morris was the sole council member who voted against extending the landfill’s life.

Morris said he had no reason to doubt studies indicating that the landfill was filling slower than expected, or that resident complaints have dropped in recent years.

However, he said, as a “concerned citizen” he strongly opposed the landfill expansion in 2002 and did not want to compromise his earlier position. While odor and trash problems have improved, Morris said he wanted to represent residents who have opposed the landfill’s operations in Shawnee.

“I think there’s a significant amount of people in the community that object to the impact it has on the community,” Morris said.

After the council voted to approve extending the landfill, Morris joined the rest of its members in voting to approve the new, larger impact fees for Deffenbaugh.

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