Starting last year when rumors of the proposed project in south Kansas City began circulating, Missouri state Rep. Mike Haffner has pushed legislation meant to give surrounding communities more sway over landfills.
Lawmakers must change a “broken process that unfairly hurts Missourians” to keep a landfill from moving into south Kansas City without residents’ input, state Rep. Mike Haffner told his colleagues Tuesday.
Speaking on the floor of the Missouri House, Haffner argued that a landfill proposed for a site at Kansas City’s southern border would devastate the environment, residents’ property values and surrounding suburbs’ economic development efforts. The project, he said, is “exactly what’s wrong with politics.”
Starting last year when rumors of the proposed landfill began circulating, Haffner has pushed legislation meant to give surrounding communities more sway over landfills proposed at the edges of Kansas City.
“The location of landfills should be open and transparent,” said Haffner, a Pleasant Hill Republican. “It should be publicly discussed with the community and not done in the dark of night.”
Haffner urged the House again Tuesday to pass his legislation and protect suburban municipalities surrounding Kansas City.
Seventy Republicans joined with 43 Democrats in support of the bill, with 30 Republicans voting against. It faces one more House vote before it can move to the Missouri Senate, where Republican Sens. Mike Cierpiot and Rick Brattin are sponsoring identical legislation.
KC Recycle & Waste Solutions, owned by a married couple from the Kansas City metro, has proposed building a landfill at the southern tip of Kansas City where it borders Raymore. The site, just south of Missouri Highway 150, is within a mile of the Creekmoor golf course community with homes priced between $500,000 and $1 million.
News of the proposed landfill, which would occupy about 270 acres, roiled nearby communities who have organized against the project and formed a political action committee, Kill The Fill.
Under current law, Missouri environmental regulators can’t issue a permit for a landfill in Kansas City within half a mile of a neighboring municipality unless that municipality signs off on it. Haffner’s bill would increase the buffer zone to a mile, effectively giving the surrounding community veto power over KC Recycle & Waste Solutions’ project.
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Categories: Missouri, General