Fairfield divided over a new landfill

FAIRFIELD — From 900 feet in the air, looking down on a dump in western Utah County, all you can see is a flurry of white wings swooping and circling their treasure trove like a hurricane.

The sight sends a chill down Mark Pringle's spine when he thinks of the birds that could be attracted to a new landfill if it is built in Fairfield — next to the airport he flies from — and the damage a seagull could do to feather-light kit planes while the planes are in the air.

Pringle isn't the only one who is worried about the potential new business. A group of residents, who say the trash that blows away from the town's existing landfill is too much already, want to have a referendum vote in November and overturn the town council's majority decision to welcome a second landfill. "You hear a lot about people who say, 'Not in my back yard,"' said Darwin Bundy, a member of the town's Planning Commission. "Well, this is the only situation where I've seen people say, 'Yeah, yeah, put it in my back yard, please."'

In a heated September meeting, the town council voted 3-1 to allow a new wet dump into the community, to join a dry landfill that residents say was forced on the area before Fairfield became a town in 2004.

The current landfill is a few miles southwest of town. The proposed landfill, if allowed to open, would be several miles east of that landfill.

Although Mayor Lynn Gillies abstained from the September vote because of a conflict of interest, the longtime Fairfield resident says he doesn't see any other economic choice for the fledgling town, population 132.

The town is so small and remote — located on the west side of Utah Lake, about 15 miles past Eagle Mountain — that few businesses dare to venture so far into the dry Cedar Valley to set up shop, Gillies says.

"Because of our location and our low population, we don't have any way of attracting large businesses," Gillies said. "There's just not enough people out here to take care of to make it profitable. You have to increase property taxes every year to stay with the cost factors. I would rather see the mixed waste landfill, which would be the equivalent to a large box store with the taxes, and in the long run, it will be more profitable for the town. With our population, we would probably have more money per capita than any other city in Utah."