Trash truck crash fuels concern

Oklahoma-bound garbage from Wichita at root of dilemma

? Workers have finished cleaning up the mess after a tractor-trailer carrying 25 tons of Wichita garbage overturned in Sumner County, but the incident has fueled critics who want the city to put its trash in a closer landfill.

Before the cleanup was completed Wednesday, Dennis Gunderson could smell the heap of spilled trash resting in a ditch across Kansas Highway 49 from his home north of Caldwell.

John Slate pulls a piece of cardboard embedded in the ditch along Kansas Highway 49, north of Caldwell. A tractor-trailer hauling trash overturned Tuesday spilling 25 tons of Sedgwick County trash destined for a landfill near Meno, Okla. The accident kept Slate and a cleanup crew busy Wednesday.

The stench reminded him of rotten vegetables.

Like other Sumner County residents, Gunderson says it’s a perfect example of why he’s against Waste Connections trucking 1,500 tons of trash daily from a Wichita transfer station to the landfill it owns near Meno, Okla.

“It could happen again,” he said.

Sumner County Sheriff Gerald Gilkey said the driver of the truck, Steven Turnes, was issued tickets for unreasonable speed, loss of load and driving on the wrong side of the road relating to Tuesday’s accident.

Turnes, who was treated for minor injuries, likely took a curve in the highway too fast, Gilkey said.

Gilkey said he has received complaints from Sumner County residents weekly since October about trash truck haulers going too fast and not obeying traffic laws. October is when Brooks Landfill closed and hauling began.

Jim Spencer, regional vice president of Waste Connections, said he does not think the accident demonstrates a need for a landfill closer to Wichita.

“You can have an accident here in town,” he said. “Accidents can happen anytime, anywhere.”

But Ben Sciortino, chairman of the Sedgwick County Commission, said a local landfill would prevent such accidents.

He said a solid waste committee is looking at how to deal long-term with the trash.