Bfi

In a development case that is not even half over after three hearings before the Howard County Zoning Board, a waste-management company restated last night its case for why its proposed solid-waste transfer station is needed.Browning-Ferris Inc. has asked the County Council, sitting as the Zoning Board, to approve a 17-acre station off U.S. 1 on Cemetery Lane in Elkridge.A transfer station consolidates and prepares trash for transport to a landfill.BFI attorney Ronald S. Schimel used the concluding testimony of Jim Stone, the company's vice president of marketing and sales, to restate the company's case that the transfer station is needed to dispose of commercial trash, to promote more recycling and create competition among waste-management companies.

The owner of a regional recycling center in Elkridge is proposing to nearly double the size of the facility and modernize it.The 4-year-old plant is operating around the clock, sorting cans, glass, plastics and paper from Howard, Anne Arundel, and Harford counties, said John L. Lininger, a marketing vice president for Browning-Ferris Industries."

The county's decision to pay Browning Ferris Industries $61 a ton toprocess recyclables beginning in June, has offended operators of theSusquehannock Environmental Center Inc.The Board of Estimates awarded BFI a contract last week to sort Harford's recyclables and takethem to market when the county's volunteer trash recycling program begins in June.But, Bob Chance, founder and president of the non-profit recycling and environmental education center in Bel Air, says the center could provide the service at lower cost -- and has been doing the job forfree for 20 years.

A landscape architect and planning expert said last night he finds no compelling reason to build a trash transfer station on 17 acres in Elkridge and has many more reasons why the plan should be rejected by the Howard County Zoning Board.Browning-Ferris Industries proposes to build the transfer station on Cemetery Lane, where the waste-management company operates a recycling center. At the transfer station, trash would be consolidated and prepared for transport to a landfill.Last night, attorneys for opponents of the transfer station presented Mark Wendland, a senior associate and landscape architect for LDR International in Columbia, as an expert witness to refute BFI's claim that the proposed site is suitable for the transfer station.

The owner of a regional recycling center in Elkridge is proposing to nearly double the size of the facility and modernize it.The 4-year-old plant is operating around the clock sorting cans, glass, plastics and paper from Anne Arundel, Howard and Harford counties, said John L. Lininger, a marketing vice president for Browning-Ferris Industries."

Maryland Environmental Service, which oversees the much-criticized composting yard on the Anne Arundel-Howard border, has fired the company supervising the plant's daily operation after receiving numerous state sanctions for the yard's foul smell.During a hearing last night before the Anne Arundel County Council, MES director James W. Peck announced that the state agency was severing a $425,000 annual contract with Browning Ferris Industries. MES will take over operations March 2 after buying the composting equipment from BFI.In addition, Mr. Peck outlined a series of steps to lessen odors from the 56-acre yard that residents on both sides of the county line have described as sickening.

Annapolis Alderman M. Theresa DeGraff, whose complaints led city officials to hire a private company to collect garbage at 4,000 homes Christmas weekend, is the wife of a manager at the firm that got the job.John Patmore, city public works director, said Friday that he hired Browning-Ferris Industries Inc. without getting estimates from other companies after Ms. DeGraff called to complain that trash had not been picked up at half the homes in the city.He...

Annapolis Alderman M. Theresa DeGraff, whose complaints led city officials to hire a private company to collect garbage at 4,000 homes Christmas weekend, is the wife of a manager at the firm that got the job.John Patmore, city public works director, said Friday that he hired Browning-Ferris Industries Inc. without getting estimates from other companies after Ms. DeGraff called to complain that trash had not been picked up at half the homes in the city.He...

ANNAPOLIS -- The Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruled yesterday that a Howard County zoning panel and Circuit Court were wrong to give Browning Ferris Inc. the go-ahead to construct and operate a solid waste transfer and recovery station in Elkridge.BFI, an international waste-management company, now operates only a recycling center on the property near the intersection of Meadowridge Road and U.S. 1.The case stemmed from objections by a then-neighbor, Meadowridge Industrial Center Limited Partnership, which has since sold the business park it owned north of the BFI site.

As the long-running dispute over a proposed trash transfer station in Elkridge draws to a close, the attorney for a waste-management company tried last night to undo any damage that opponents' testimony may have caused.At issue is a proposal by Browning-Ferris Industries to build a transfer station on 17 acres on Cemetery Lane, where the company operates a recycling center. At the transfer station, trash would be prepared and loaded onto trucks to be taken to landfills.On July 17, attorneys will give closing arguments, said Howard County Councilman Darrel E. Drown, chairman of the Zoning Board.