Beneath the Surface

In mid-1993, the eyes of Sumter County, South Carolina were on Laidlaw Environmental Services. After a decade of operating a 279-acre hazardous waste site without a permanent permit, the company faced a $1.8 million fine from the state for multiple safety violations. Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency banned the facility from accepting waste under the federal Superfund program, citing the release of dust tainted by hazardous waste. And Sumter County was fighting Laidlaw in court over its zoning.

Knowing what a volatile time it was for the landfill, Eileen Waddell of The Item decided to take a hard look at Laidlaw. Her investigation revealed frequent land swaps and an illegal deed — and raised disturbing questions about who will pay if an accident occurs.

 

Sumter, S.C. — Laidlaw Environmental Services is burying waste in land it doesn’t own.

From 1972 to 1989, none of the operators of the landfill owned the land into which they were burying toxic waste. They leased it from local wheat, corn, and soybean farmer Dargan Elliott Jr.

Laidlaw, which has operated the landfill since 1986, has reversed that trend — sort of. Laidlaw owns hazardous waste burial cells 1 and 2, which have been filled and closed down. But Cell 3, where Laidlaw is now burying waste, is owned by Elliott, who sold the company the 58 acres just last September but then bought it back three months later.

Since 1989, Laidlaw has been burying more and more waste on what is referred to as the “279-acre permitted site.” But last year, Cell 3 was traded back and forth. In September, Laidlaw bought Cell 3 from Elliott. Then, in December, Elliott bought it back — for “$5.” “$5” is a common notation for property deeds at the county courthouse and does not necessarily reflect the amount of money exchanged.

Thus, Elliott is once again the owner of his own private, active, hazardous waste burial cell, which he is leasing to Laidlaw.

Elliott has owned an active cell before. According to records on file with the Sumter County deeds office, Elliott owned burial Cell 1 while waste was being buried there. The cell was closed in 1984; Laidlaw bought the 29.85 acres in 1989 for “$5,” according to county records.

Elliott also owned Cell 2 much of the time waste was being buried there. Cell 2 was opened in 1984 and closed just last year; Laidlaw bought the land underneath it — 44.73 acres — in 1989, also for “$5.”

Laidlaw started to dig Cell 3 last spring. At some point in the future, Laidlaw plans to buy the property again, company officials say.

 

Who Will Pay?

Because Laidlaw has not always owned the cells it’s used, opponents of the landfill have wondered for years who would be legally responsible for a spill or a leak at the landfill: Laidlaw, or Elliott or his descendants?

Members of Sumter’s Citizens Asking for a Safe Environment (CASE) aren’t convinced when officials with the state Department of Health and Environmental Control say that Laidlaw would be responsible should a leak occur on any part of the landfill.

DHEC has never been particularly concerned throughout the years that Elliott owned most of the landfill. David Wilson, director of the DHEC’s Division of Hazardous and Infectious Waste Management, said there is no state regulation requiring Laidlaw to own the land underneath the landfill.

Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency in Atlanta say there is no federal regulation either, even though under the law, the EPA holds owners and operators equally liable in case of a leak or an accident.

“It’s fairly common for hazardous waste facilities to be owned by someone other than the operator,” said Rich Campbell, EPA section chief for hazardous waste permitting in North and South Carolina. “We trace liability through financial agreements with the operators. If those fail, we are likely to go after the operator first, but both are equally liable.”

Campbell said it is unusual, however, for a portion of a hazardous waste landfill to be owned by an individual, as is the case with Elliott. Campbell said he’s not sure why the EPA has never required operators to be owners, but making it a requirement now would mean a massive readjustment in the way the hazardous waste industry is run. “It would put a big burden on a lot of folks,” Campbell said.

Attorneys for groups opposing the landfill’s permanent operating permit, including Jimmy Chandler, attorney for Columbia’s Energy Research Foundation and South Carolina’s branch of the Sierra Club, agree with CASE. Chandler says Laidlaw’s liability for a leak could easily be challenged in court if the company doesn’t own the land when a spill occurs, or possibly, even if they didn’t own the land when the waste was being buried — or if Laidlaw declares bankruptcy.

Elliott might be deemed responsible for cleaning up the site, Chandler added, although the cost would be beyond any individual’s ability to pay.

The courts are a common avenue for liability questions, admits Campbell of the EPA. “Bankruptcy is a big problem in the hazardous-waste business,” he said, but declined to comment on a specific case. “When a company declares bankruptcy, we look at their finances and we look at other sources, too, first and foremost the owner.”

 

Evading Taxes

Why a private citizen would want to own a piece of property into which hazardous waste is being buried may be a mystery to most people.

Laidlaw has paid Elliott, who still does some light farming near the landfill, what land officials call a more than fair market price for most of the land the company has bought.

Elliott has never publicly commented about his land dealings with the landfill operators, and he could not be reached by The Item. No one has answered the phone at Elliott’s residence for the past three weeks.

People knowledgeable about Laidlaw’s land dealings, however, say Elliott several months ago told attorneys hired by Sumter County that he didn’t ask Laidlaw officials why they changed their minds about owning Cell 3. They also said that that’s vintage Elliott: He generally rents what he rents and sells what he sells without asking Laidlaw too many questions.

Elliott did talk to the attorneys during the discovery process for the county’s pending court case against Laidlaw for allegedly violating the county zoning ordinance. Elliott may be called later to testify about his relationship with Laidlaw when the case begins in state court.

Dan Jones, vice president for public affairs with Laidlaw’s parent company, Laidlaw Environmental Services of North America, Inc., said taxes are the reason the company sold Cell 3 back to Elliott. Jones said the company gets better tax breaks when they lease rather than own the land.

Laidlaw attorney Henry Taylor said the company sold the 58 acres back to Elliott in December because the county had reassessed the property after the September purchase, causing the property tax to climb dramatically. “We didn’t know those changes were coming when we bought the land,” Taylor said.

Taylor said Laidlaw paid between $100,000 and $150,000 in equipment, real estate, vehicles, business, and personal property taxes to Sumter County last year. Not including vehicle taxes and business taxes, which are not released to the public, Laidlaw paid $40,254.77 in personal property, equipment, and real estate taxes in 1991, according to Sumter County Treasurer Elizabeth Hair. In 1992, Laidlaw paid $57,309.54 in personal property, equipment, and real estate taxes — making the company far from the biggest taxpayer in Sumter County.

The 1992 figures reflect the reassessment on the 14 pieces of property owned either by Laidlaw or Elliott and considered part of the landfill operations by Sumter County. Combined, real estate and equipment taxes for those parcels were $97,233.88 last year, according to the Sumter County Assessor’s Office, nearly $40,000 of which was on property in Elliott’s name.

Reassessments are common after a property purchase or when the use for a parcel changes. Some businesses in Sumter County are reassessed every year. Laidlaw is one of those.

Laidlaw is not considered an industry, and so pays taxes at the commercial rate, or six percent of the assessed value. Much of the land that Elliott owns around the landfill has an agricultural exemption, which means he is taxed at a rate of four percent of its assessed value, even though on much of Elliott’s land there’s not a cow. And there’s not a row of corn.

That’s not unusual, county attorney Henry Richardson said, and Elliott isn’t doing anything wrong. Richardson said the state tax commission has been lenient with its definition of agricultural land. The interpretation of the definition has been very lenient, too, he said.

“South Carolina is an agricultural state,” Richardson said. “The state encourages agriculture. Timberland, for example, even if it isn’t being harvested, could be considered agricultural. We have to be liberal to be fair.”

The owner’s definition of a piece of property is rarely contested unless the property is very large, Richardson said, and county officials have not contested Elliott’s.

Elliott’s property that he leases to Laidlaw that is situated within the “279-acre boundary line” is taxed at a six percent rate. Some of Elliott’s property around a railroad spur across the road from the landfill is mixed: Part is taxed at four percent and part at six.

 

What’s Buried Here?

But there’s another curiosity about the December sale of land from Laidlaw to Elliott, where Laidlaw made $5.

The deed, which was probated in Lexington County, doesn’t reflect the fact that the land contains hazardous waste, which is a violation of a state statute. According to section 30-5-36 of the South Carolina code of laws, written to reflect federal laws on hazardous substances, the deed should contain the wording, “The real property conveyed or transferred by this instrument has previously been used as a storage or disposal facility for hazardous wastes.”

The deed, signed by Laidlaw president Bill Stillwell and recorded at the Sumter County Courthouse on December 23, 1992, does not contain that wording. The missing clause is a violation of a state statute with no penalty attached.

And it’s not the fault of the county’s Register of Mesne Conveyances, who records the county’s deeds, said Sumter County attorney Henry Richardson. “It may at worst invalidate the deed, but it would probably be up to Mr. Elliott to complain about it,” Richardson said. “It’s a curiosity. Sumter County, however, will have to insist on going back in and correcting the deed to alert future landholders.”