Fullmer’s wants to move its current landscaping operations facility from 9547 W. Third Street to the four-acre South Lutheran Church Road site.
The township will hold a public hearing on the issue at 7 p.m. March 26 at the township’s administration building, One Business Park Dr., according to Jeff Payne, the township’s zoning director.
The zoning commissioners will not take any action after this public hearing because the issue has to be brought to the county planning commission before a recommendation can be made to the township trustees.
“It’s a sorting facility for us to take care of our own trash,” said Kent Fullmer, business owner. “We create a lot of landscape waste, a lot of waste when we do a landscape on a property in beautifying someone’s home. To try and be better stewards, what we’re doing is instead of putting all that waste in a landfill, we decided that it might save us dollars and it might be better stewardship to put it in that facility that’s there.”
Fullmer said the operation would consist of workers unloading their trucks onto a dumpster pad at the site. The area would have several different bins that would hold leftover concrete, pavers, landscape waste, brush or firewood.
“We’re sorting that into bins and then we can recycle at a later date,” Fullmer said. “We don’t create enough of it to run it through a crusher as soon as it comes in. We have to pile the concrete probably for two to three years before we’ll have enough to crush.”
Payne said he has asked the Solid Waste Division of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to review Fullmer’s application to determine if the proposed operation needed a permit to do the work from the Ohio EPA.
“In the EPA licensing process, there is a particular caveat that says if you are recycling yard waste materials on land that you own and you’re using it as part of a business, then you can be exempted (from getting a permit),” Payne said.
Public Health- Dayton & Montgomery County, the county’s health department, has issued a notice of violation for the South Lutheran Church Road property after officials found “miscellaneous solid waste” on the ground there.
Fullmer’s was given 30 days to remove the material.
Prior to the Public Health’s notice of violation, Payne issued a nuisance notice that said the South Lutheran Church Road property had illegal storage of used tires, garbage, refuse and construction or demolition debris.
Township officials contacted the county Environmental Crimes Task Force after they said Fullmer didn’t respond.
At the March 3 township trustee meeting several residents complained about the South Lutheran Church Road site, calling it an illegal dump site and insinuating that it is an environmental health hazard.
Kent Fullmer later said other people caused the problem by dumping trash at the site.
“We want to be good neighbors and that’s why we asked the neighbors to please come and speak with us,” Fullmer said.
The road into the land has not had a gate. Fullmer said they are building one now.
“It’s in the process to be done,” he said. “Right now, the last few days, it (has) just been too muddy for us to do that.”
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