Birmingham News
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McGregor withdraws plans as Jackson joins opponents of landfill

By DAVE BRYAN
August 24, 2000

A company that planned to build Alabama's biggest solid waste landfill withdrew its proposal as the Rev. Jesse Jackson joined foes of locating the mammoth dump in predominantly black and poor Macon County.

Milton McGregor, a gambling magnate who is majority owner of Macon County Environmental Facility Inc., said at a news conference with Jackson and other leaders Wednesday he withdrew plans for the landfill after getting assurances from local officials they would work to find other ways to clean up the county.

The owner of VictoryLand dog racing track at Shorter and other ventures around the state, McGregor owns about 3,500 acres in the county, which has had an ongoing problem with illegal dumping.

McGregor said he decided to withdraw the application early Wednesday morning at the end of a lengthy meeting in a Montgomery hotel between Jackson, state Rep. Johnny Ford and state Sen. George Clay, both Democrats who represent Macon County.

"I've never had any interest in the landfill business, however I do have an interest in cleaning up this county," he said.

The commission was to vote Wednesday whether to approve the landfill, which would have covered 700 to 800 acres near the town of Shorter and accepted up to 5,000 tons of trash a day from around the South.

In addition to opposition from many county residents, Gov. Don Siegelman came out against the plan.

"Today, you are drawing a line in the sand. You are saying, 'Enough is enough. You are saying, 'Macon County will not become the pay toilet of America,"' Siegelman said in a written statement addressed to county residents.

Jackson, who positioned himself as a peacemaker in the dispute, said McGregor and local leaders turned a crisis into an opportunity, and he called on opponents of the project not to gloat over the victory.

"You take the landfill out, you take the glass out of the wound and therefore you can begin healing," he said.

Company president Dave Avant had said the landfill is needed because the county has problems with illegal dumping. Macon County currently uses a landfill in Lee County.

Jackson was invited to intervene in the dispute by Tuskegee President Benjamin Payton, a longtime friend who had said the dump's location in a county that is mostly black constitutes environmental racism.

Payton said county residents not only fought successfully to halt the landfill proposal, but the opposition helped county citizens to bond.

"Unlike in the civil rights era, in this struggle we have whites from Macon County and other counties ... people from Alabama who are working shoulder to shoulder," Payton said.

Jackson, president of Chicago-based Rainbow Coalition/PUSH, said he spoke out about the proposed Macon County landfill because he was invited by Payton to intervene. He has not addressed another planned solid waste landfill in Lowndes County, where critics say a 230-acre project could mar the landscape along the nearby Selma-to-Montgomery National Historical Trail.

However, Jackson said his organization plans to become more involved in opposing the location of landfills and other waste facilities at sites throughout the South.

"This issue is now front and center," he said. "Though it is a negative issue today, it is pulling people together across racial lines."