By Megan V. Williams
Wilmington, NC – North Carolina lawmakers may take the power of permitting landfills away from local governments.
The state is halfway through a one-year moratorium on new landfill construction.
State Representative Carolyn Justice says as part of the ban, the Assembly's Environmental Review Commission is looking at how to change landfill permitting and regulation.
Justice is on the Commission and says the state has been slow to regulate small dumps in the past.
Let's be ahead of the curve on these big ones and say there's certain places they just shouldn't be and maybe relation belongs with the state and not the local government, since a regional landfill effects more than one county.
The landfill moratorium put six projects in the state on hold, including the proposed Sims-Huge Neu facility in Brunswick County and another project in Columbus County.