UPDATED: Local School System Dumps Trash Behind Schools

***12:30 p.m. Update July 21***

DHEC has told the Edgefield County to stop dumping and clean up the trash, immediately. It’s not a landfill with permits, so they can’t do what they’re doing.

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***10:55 a.m. Update July 21***

Edgefield County, SC—Investigators from the South Caroliona Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) are back at some property Tuesday behind J.E.T. Middle School, taking a look at the land the Edgefield County School Board is using to dump trash before burning it.

The spokesman for DHEC says it’ll be a few days before there’s a ruling on the makeshift dump. The Edgefield County Sheriff’s Office asked the agency to step in after getting complaints about possible illegal dumping behind the school. There’s old school furniture and a pit full of trash.

The Director of Operations for Edgefield County Schools says they don’t bury anything and as far as he knows, they’re not doing anything illegal. “It may be that it’s just something that it’s too controversial to do. DHEC may tell us, ‘No, you can not do that.‘ And we will certainly abide by what they tell us. It would not take long to clean up the site,“ says James Courtney.

DHEC says it’ll be a few days before investigators say whether this can continue.

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Edgefield County, SC—Not far behind J.E.T. Middle School sits what looks like a small landfill. There is a hole full of trash and another pile of items containing metal, such as lunchroom tables, desks, and chairs. The Director of Operations and Maintenance tells WJBF News Channel 6 they do not bury anything. They recycle some of it and burn the rest. And as far as they know, they’re not doing anything wrong.
“The prop is used by the maintenance dept as a controlled yard debris and wood burn pile. And we also store the recycle things such as desks furniture and things that need to be taken apart and the metal saved and recycle,“ says James Courtney.

Courtney says they burn what they collect about twice a year. “When we do burn it, we do call the state Forestry Commission, we do get a controlled burn number and we do it when there’s plenty of moisture and we monitor it very carefully.“

We saw some trash in the hole that didn’t look like it came from local schools, and Courtney admits that’s sometimes a problem. “People do go back there, they do leave us things they think we should have. Before we burn it, we always usually go through it, try to pick that stuff out and get that to the proper places, and then we burn the pile,” says Courtney.

We’re still waiting to hear back from DHEC about whether this is okay. Courtney says if the agency tells them to stop, they will do so quickly and clean the site.

The Edgefield County Sheriff’s Office turned this case over to the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control. As of this posting, we had no official response from DHEC about whether this practice is okay. After talking with a DHEC representative Monday, the agency was looking into the issue.