Greensburg, IN—Wednesday evening the Decatur County Area Plan Commission met in front of a packed house to overhear the petition from BEX Farms, otherwise known as Decatur County Hills/Best Way to seek rezoning of 150 acres of property currently zoned as A-1 to I-1. The purpose of the rezoning would be to seek the use of the land to eventually extend the current landfill. Paul Stone, President of the APC spoke to the crowd on the duty of the Commission is to vote on the zoning of the property from A-1 to I-1 and not the planned use being a landfill. That vote would be taken to the Board of Zoning Appeals if approved by the APC.
The meeting took roughly 3 hours with Best Way and several concerned community members presenting information. Concerns expressed varied from issues of smell, safety of water quality, and cancer rates.
The Commission asked the City of Greensburg to present its information on how this would affect residents. Mayor Josh Marsh stated that the expansion would follow the plan for growth and expansion of the City. Street Commissioner Mark Klosterkemper presented information on the cost per City resident per month if the landfill reaches its capacity. Overall, the increase would be $4.87 per residence per month to truck trash outside of the City. Also presenting for the City was James Carr. Carr is the owner of Hydrophase, Inc. His areas of expertise include projects involving groundwater resource evaluation, regulatory 
compliance, and challenging technical problems in groundwater development, management or cleanup. He oversees the Well Protection Plan for the City. Carr noted that there is not probable that the City’s water source could be contaminated from the addition of the landfill.
The petition was once again tabled as the Commission asked for time to review all materials presented before deciding. We will continue to follow this story as information becomes available.
