Shon Willis says he’s in a bit of a “controlled panic.”

The Meridian farmer is concerned that the Lauderdale County Board of Supervisors may  approve the building of a waste transfer station near his neighborhood.

He worries that once the transfer station is built in the Key Brothers Industrial Park, it will stay there.

“Once it’s here, it’s here,” Shon Willis said. “So we want to do everything that we can to stop it from getting in place.”

JWC Environmental, a waste management company, is hoping to build the facility to serve as a transfer location for recyclable material and garbage. The company had originally proposed placing the station at G.V. Sonny Montgomery Industrial Park, but Naval Air Station Meridian officials and other community members opposed the location.

For the station to be built, the board of supervisors would have to amend the regional Solid Waste Management Plan. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality would then have to approve the amendment.

The new proposed location for the transfer station is near Sweet Gum Bottom Road. Several residents who live in the community voiced their opposition to that location during a public hearing on May 17.

Shon Willis and his wife, Alicia Willis, are among those concerned citizens. Vultures already frequent the property where the Willis family raises livestock, and they are concerned that the transfer station could attract more vultures. 

Several generations have farmed in Shon Willis’ family. His grandparents and great-grandparents grew crops and raised livestock.

About four years ago, Shon Willis started leasing a pasture on Sweet Gum Bottom Road. His home, which he and his wife built in 2012, is just down the road.

For the last few years, vultures have been a nuisance for the Willis family. Their farm is less than half a mile away from the Pine Ridge Landfill, which attracts large flocks of vultures.

“We deal with buzzards literally every day,” Shon Willis said.

The birds often perch on a gate, which is spotted with white vulture droppings. The buzzards also frequently stand by his livestock.

Shon Willis’ cattle drink water from a pond on the farm. When the pond dries up, he and his son use a hose to send water into a 100-gallon water trough. The vultures perch by the trough, and sometimes defecate in it. 

Shon Willis and his son have to remove the water from the trough and replace it with clean water, which is time-consuming. 

“We can’t give that nasty water to the cows,” he said.

“It’s not fair”

Shon Willis believes that placing the transfer station in his community is an environmental justice issue. The EPA defines environmental justice as the “fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin or income, with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies.”

“It’s not fair to put us between … a landfill and a waste station,” Shon and Alicia Willis said.

Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality guidance says that when local government officials review requests to modify a Solid Waste Management Plan, they should consider local issues such as zoning, land use and environmental justice.

Alicia Willis said the board of supervisors should have already been knowledgable about environmental justice before the May 17 public hearing.

“If they’re really following those guidelines that DEQ has established, then that’s something they should have been aware of already and taken into account,” she said.

Shon Willis says the board was just checking a box off by holding the public hearing. 

“It was just a formality….They really didn’t want to hear what we really had to say,” he said. 

District 5 Supervisor Kyle Rutledge said the board was open to hear what anyone had to say at the public hearing.

“Anyone who wanted to speak was given at least five minutes,” he said.

Rutledge added that residents can submit written comments to the board until May 28. The board has up to 90 days from the date of the May 17 hearing to take action on the matter.

Shon Willis is hoping that the board and JWC Environmental will find a location for the transfer station that is “suitable for everybody.”

“Not only do we not want it out here, but we don’t want them to move to another place where other people there are impacted,” he said. “So we’re not only concerned about ourselves, but we’re concerned about everybody.”