Scrap-tires hearing put off until Oct. 26

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality has canceled its public hearing today on proposed changes to the state's scrap-tire rules and rescheduled it for next month.

The rescheduled hearing will be at 10 a.m. Oct. 26 at the department's headquarters in North Little Rock. The public comment period has been extended to 4:30 p.m. Nov. 9.

The proposed changes in scrap-tire rules, which are based on Act 1037 of 2015, would allow the state to apply a landfill post-closure trust fund to "waste tire processing facilities and waste tire disposal sites owned and operated by districts that lack sufficient funds to complete closure of the permitted waste tire processing or waste tire disposal site."

The landfill post-closure trust fund is financed through fees attached to waste deposited in landfills and is designed to pay for the closure of landfills in Arkansas.

State Rep. Bob Ballinger, R-Hindsville, has said he sponsored the law so the department could use landfill funds to clean up 1 million scrap tires at a dump in Mountain Home that's owned by a contractor of the Ozark Mountain Regional Solid Waste District. The cleanup is estimated to cost about $1 million.

The landfill post-closure trust fund has about $17.4 million in it and is also being used to finance the closure of the North Arkansas Board of Regional Sanitation landfill in Mountain Home, which is owned by the Ozark Mountain Regional Solid Waste District. State Department of Environmental Quality officials estimated the cost of that project at $14 million.

Metro on 09/30/2016

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