I do not personally believe that the Commission should be making the decision about how residents dispose of their garbage, but our Commissioners have decided to tackle this project.

Ketron and his Commissioners should NEVER have accepted an invitation to visit Republic’s facilities in California or Las Vegas. It put them in the home court of the company that has caused so much grief for residents near Middle Point Landfill for so many years.

Republic failed to step forward and offer anything new and innovative for all the years they created a huge, stinky mess. BTW, don’t light a match in Walter Hill. It also makes them look like they are colluding with Republic and making themselves available to coercion.

Again, refer to the County Code of Ethics.

If there is any “fairness” in determining how we will process our waste, of all possible contenders, Republic should be banned from the process. They had all these years to show they are a concerned contractor, who makes big money from owning the landfill, and never ever did anything until threatened with losing the contract.

Republic should be charged with cleaning up the mess. But I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts, if they’re not picked, if they lose their contract, they will be gone so fast your head’ll spin. Leaving us to deal with their mess.

Mayor Ketron is still talking about “composting and recycling.”

Did someone forget to tell him: we already compost. Compost is gold. Check that box. Old news: Recycling is a waste of money.

Mad cow disease?

As far back as 2014, there have been complaints about the black vultures. They kill calves and kids, but they also eat the carrion dumped in the landfill. They have chased away the seagulls.

But Mayor Ketron renewed a contract that allows a company from ……wait for it………GILES COUNTY, to haul carcasses from all over Hell’s Half Acre (10 counties) to the Middle Point Landfill.

Don’t you just love it when our hard-earned tax dollars get spent in other counties?

Especially for the charitable cause of hauling carcasses from veterinary clinics, shelters, slaughter houses and farms from who knows where, and dumped in our back yard.

We do not know what diseases (perhaps Mad Cow?) these carcasses are depositing in the landfill and leach into Stones River.

Oh, I guess Mayor Ketron was too busy to look into this tasty tidbit. Yeah, Mad Cow, called Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (CJD) in humans, is caused by a prion that is impossible to eradicate unless you incinerate at 600 degrees Fahrenheit. Natural composting only gets to about 70 degrees.

These carcasses are decomposing and eventually leach into Stones River. Yum!

This is just one concern with the landfill. Just let your mind go crazy over all the other issues.

Why didn’t Republic take any initiative?

They’ve known about the end of the landfill’s life for several years, and they could have stepped up and shown some concern about the community that pays their wages, and they did nothing.

I’ve been studying the problem for years and have visited various types of processing systems on my own dime, not taxpayer money. Why? Because it is a problem in so many places and because of the diseases we are exposed to via landfill.

I mean, why drink bottled water? Why filter our water if not to clean it from toxins? Forget about cleaning out prions. Hospitals won’t even touch a corpse if CJD is present. That’s how easily transmissible it is. If you think cancer is bad, meet its mac-daddy, CJD.

Our Commissioners and Mayor Ketron need to get some smarts and stop playing politics with our lives.

Use the computers God and the taxpayers have given you, do a search for “modern municipal waste processing.” It’s so easy, even a second-grader can do that, well, maybe not Craig Harris, but at least Pettus Read.

I think the Commission should scribble together a request for proposal that includes a request for processing that includes addressing a means for giving us “clean garbage” and disallow Republic from the process.

I just don’t think they have any right to be rewarded.