County Sets Hearing for Landfill Extension

The owners of a site for a proposed rubble landfill near Capitol Raceway Road will go before Anne Arundel County officials next month to request a time extension to implement their plan.

The county will hold a public hearing March 1 to review an application for a variance on the project that dates back nearly 15 years.

Several community leaders said they will push the county to reject the application.

The case has focused on plans by James Cunningham, who owns the land where the proposed rubble landfill would sit. He has agreed to allow Tolson & Associates to operate the rubble landfill, but the parties are still seeking a permit from the Maryland Department of Environment (MDE) to move forward.

Cunningham first applied to build a sand and gravel operation and rubble landfill in 1993, and the county granted him a special exception to allow it. The county initially ruled the landfill must go into operation by 1999. But the county later approved a variance on that rule.

Over the next decade, various parties appealed the variance ruling, and the matter was held up in litigation until the end of 2009.

Meanwhile, the owners applied for a permit from the Maryland Department of Environment, and various county boards granted an extension of the variance to Dec. 30, 2011. Cunningham formally asked for the extension on Dec. 29 last year.

The most recent plans call for the rubble landfill to be operated by Tolson & Associates, a group that does not include James Cunningham but does include some family members. The landfill operation would take up about 185 acres to the south of Piney Orchard and west of Route 3.

Opponents of the landfill said they will push for the county to reject the variance, arguing that too much time has passed.

“They’ve had since the 1990s to get it done,” said David Tibbetts, an attorney and vice president of the Greater Odenton Improvement Association. “If you can’t get it over the finish line, maybe you just don’t get it.”

In a letter to the county requesting an extension of the variance, Cunningham contended that the landfill operators should not be blamed for the delay in getting MDE approval. He also said any time spent in litigation should not count toward any time periods tied to the special exception.

The landfill operators have requested that the variance be extended until Dec. 30, 2012.

An attorney for Cunningham did not return a call requesting comment.

MDE granted a preliminary approval of the project last summer and , but has not yet granted the permit for the rubble landfill.

In the meantime, residents of nearby communities have flooded MDE with letters opposing the permit. They cited environmental concerns as well as Cunningham’s past record of environmental violations.  

Jeff Andrade, president of the Piney Orchard Community Association, said he will urge residents of his community to attend the March 1 hearing.

He is also pushing for the county to eliminate the special exception that allows the rubble landfill to be built at all, citing new development—including most of the homes in Piney Orchard—that were not in place when the application was first submitted.

“The nature of the surrounding area has changed,” he said.

Andrade and Tibbetts both said that if the variance is approved, they will take the matter to the Anne Arundel County Board of Appeals.

The hearing before the Office of Planning and Zoning is scheduled for March 1 at 10:30 a.m. at 44 Calvert St., Annapolis.