At the Aug. 6 Parish Council meeting, there will be a lot of trash talking, not from council members, but from some angry Slidell residents who want the Slidell Landfill to shut down as scheduled.

Parish Councilman Gene Bellisario has introduced a resolution protesting the landfill owner’s request for an extension of their permit from the Department of Environmental Quality to operate for another nine years.

Residents, car dealers and other businesses who live near the landfill that is off Howze Beach Road are concerned that the new owners will be operating the landfill past its scheduled closing of Jan. 31, 2010. The landfill started some 25 years ago in what was then an empty part of the city that since then has grown in size and depth . It was scheduled to close in 2005, but after Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Environmental Quality decided to keep it open in order to have a place where to dump all the construction and storm debris that needed to be cleaned up after the storm. The DEQ extended the landfill’s permit to Jan. 31, 2010.

However, the new owners of Slidell Landfill LLC have applied to the DEQ to modify the permit and allow the landfill to stay open until 2019. This has not sat well with people in Slidell. All the car dealerships have united in their opposition to keeping the landfill open past 2010. The auto dealers are all located on Howze Beach Road, and the now-elevated landfill can be seen from their back windows. Otis Favre, owner of Lakeshore Chrysler said the dust from the landfill settles on the new cars in his lot, forcing him to wash the cars down several times a week.

Besides the car dealers, a grass-roots core of Slidell residents called Citizens for a Healthy St. Tammany have been e-mailing a petition around asking the DEQ to turn down the extension of the landfill’s permit.

The spokesman for Citizens for a Healthy St. Tammany, Ken Diamond is asking everybody to go to the Aug. 6 Parish Council meeting dressed in green and show their support for Bellisario’s resolution.

Favre and Francioni are also asking citizens to call up their parish representatives and tell them to vote in favor of the resolution to close the landfill in 2010.

Francioni said the car dealers met with the assistant secretary of the DEQ and presented their side and the facts of the landfill.

Diamond said his group has concerns about environmental and health issues. A lot of hazardous material has been dropped into the landfill in the past 25 years. He fears that the hazardous material at the bottom of the landfill might be pushed into the city’s water supply by the weight of the debris above. He also says the dust may cover mildew and bacteria that people breathe.

“The landfill is no longer essential,” Diamond said. “Alternate existing disposal sites are currently available.”

Bellisario said he has gotten “more than my fair share of calls,” on the issue and said the resolution expresses the council’s opposition to extending the permit.

“The real work is with the DEQ,” Bellisario said.

The DEQ is currently reviewing the permit application. DEQ officials said it would take about 60 days before they make their decision. They say they would like to hear from the public on the issue before they decide. The DEQ has already heard from many legislators. State representatives and senators representing St. Tammany have all written letters to the DEQ urging them to deny the permit. Even Congressional representatives, Steve Scalise and U.S. senators Mary Landrieu and David Vitter have also expressed their displeasure over extending the landfill’s permit. Parish President Kevin Davis has said several times that he wants to see the landfill closed in 2010 as was agreed upon by DEQ and Slidell Landfill LLC.

Francioni and Favre said they want all residents to contact the Parish Council, DEQ and legislators to put the pressure on. They also want people to show up at the Aug. 6 Council meeting.

“If you want the dump to go away, call or mail your parish councilman and legislator,” Favre said.

The parish council meeting starts at 6 p.m. To call or write a parish councilman visit www.stpgov.org. Ken Diamond can be reached by e-mail at KDDIAMOND@ aol.com.