Supervisors discuss
landfill needs
Published Tuesday, May 6
By Brant Sappington
Staff Writer

Alcorn County supervisors are poised to move forward with planning for a new county rubbish landfill in preparation for the eventual replacement of the county's existing landfill.

County Engineer Ricky Newcomb told board members the current rubbish landfill, located on Farmington Road behind the Corinth-Alcorn County Humane Society building, is rapidly nearing capacity.

Newcomb said the landfill will likely be full by the end of the year and the county needs to begin looking closely at the process of starting a new landfill. He noted the county has property on Forest School Road near the District 1 shop that has been designated for construction of a new rubbish landfill, but nothing has ever been formally submitted to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality regarding the site.

Newcomb also told supervisors the permitting process is very involved and can take a long time to complete, so it's important to begin as soon as possible to ensure they are ready to open the new landfill before the old one must be closed.

Board members told Newcomb to go ahead with preliminary research and work to prepare for the permitting process for the new landfill.

Last year, supervisors voted three to two to begin the process of obtaining a permit for a new landfill on the site. District 1 Supervisor Keith Fields, who was not present at Monday's meeting due to illness, and District 4 Supervisor Gary Ross voted against the proposal at the time. The three other current members of the board were not on the board at the time of the vote.

Supervisors also agreed Monday to allow juvenile offenders serving sentences of community service to work on projects in the county. Ross said he and the other board members would work with youth court officials to arrange times when district employees could supervise offenders on projects such as picking up trash and replacing road signs.

The agreement came at the request of Gail Childers with Youth Court and Shelly Hopkins with the Juvenile Detention Center who told the board there is currently no system in place to allow young offenders to do community service if they receive such sentences.

Sheriff Charles Rinehart said he supports the idea of young offenders working in the community as part of their punishment and believes it's a more effective punishment then simply giving them a fine which may be paid by their parents. Magnolia Regional Health Center CEO Rick Napper received approval from the board for the hospital to move forward with securing a $5 million loan for construction of a planned cancer treatment center. Napper said the hospital has the funds in place to pay for construction of the center without the loan, but because the interest rate they can get on the loan is much lower than the rate they are earning on the funds currently in the bank, it makes financial sense to finance the project through the loan.

The cancer center building will be solely owned by MRHC and operated as a joint venture between the hospital and the West Clinic of Memphis, Tenn. The loan proposal for the city- and county-owned hospital must also be approved by the Corinth Board of Aldermen.

In other business, the board:

- approved the addition of new Alliance CEO Gary Chandler and Norman Isbell to the Northeast Mississippi Business Incubation System Board of Directors.

- agreed to allow the City of Corinth to use six of the county's touch-screen voting machines for the May 20 special bond election or the Corinth School District.

- approved the appointment of Price and Krohn LLP as special counsel for work on property procurement for the Kimberly Clark access road project.

- approved an agreement to acquire property for a railroad bridge in the second district from Jeremy and Lisa Blaylock. District 2 Supervisor Jeff Patterson said he greatly appreciates the couple's willingness to donate their property for the project.

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