Residents of the Sweet Gum Bottom Road community voiced their concerns about a proposed waste transfer station at a public hearing on Monday.

JWC Environmental, a waste management company, is hoping to build a facility in Key Brothers Industrial Park that would serve as a transfer location for recyclable material and garbage. The company had originally proposed building 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 Lauderdale County 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 is near Sweet Gum Bottom Road.

Several residents who live on or near the road spoke at Monday’s hearing, saying the station could attract more vultures to their neighborhood. They are also worried that the station would affect their quality of life.

Shon Willis, a resident of Sweet Gum Bottom Road who raises livestock, said that vultures are already frequent visitors to his property. Every day, while he and his son feed their livestock, they have to deal with buzzard excrement.

Willis told The Meridian Star that he feels the county left him and other community members out of discussions regarding the transfer station. He described the plan as an “environmental injustice.”

His wife, Alicia Willis, also believes the proposed station is an environmental justice issue. She noted that 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.”

“No one came to us to involve us in anything,” Alicia Willis said, noting that when facilities such as the transfer station are built, they are typically located in Black or low-income communities.

Meridian resident Marie Franklin said the board reconsidered the location of the waste transfer station when NAS Meridian and local businesses opposed it.

“If you reconsidered and moved it up by NAS and then you reconsidered businesses, surely, why would you want to put it in a neighborhood, less than a mile from somebody’s backyard, that has children, grandchildren?” she asked.

District 5 Supervisor Kyle Rutledge said the board of supervisors is taking the matter  under advisement. The board has up to 90 days from the date of Monday’s hearing to make a decision on the proposed amendment to the regional Solid Waste Management Plan.