PIKEVILLE, Ky. — A project from an out-of-state waste management company to build a mega landfill on an abandoned coal mine in the central Appalachian community of Myra is dead after Pike County commissioners affirmed their decision to back out the contract this week.

Over the strong objections of Judge-Executive Ray Jones, he and the commissioners voted 3-1 Tuesday to rescind the agreement the county signed with a USA Waste and Recycling affiliate in early February. It was the board’s second vote on the matter after concern a similar vote Feb. 24 may have violated state law.

That decision could expose Pike County to civil litigation, since the host agreement the fiscal court had already unanimously authorized Jones to sign stipulates damages should either of the parties pull out. It also reveals a deep undercurrent of distrust in a far-Eastern Kentucky community reshaping the way it governs itself amid a worsening economic crisis triggered by the collapsed coal industry.

“If we put a landfill here, we’re only destroying our county more and more people will move away from it,” said Linda Anders, who lives in the Pike County community of Dorton.

The project, now seemingly dead, would have converted an abandoned coal mine high up above Pike County’s Shelby Valley into a mega landfill, shipping in garbage from as far away as Lexington and surrounding states by rail and truck. Residents have been up in arms about it since after they learned the fiscal court OK’d the project last month, and many have turned their ire at Jones, who they believe operated without transparency.

Bowing to pressure from those furious members of the public who have packed several of the last few commission meetings, the three county commissioners suddenly made a motion and voted to back out of the agreement last week, setting off a series of questions that may ultimately be resolved in court.

Jones was the lone dissenting vote during both votes.

This week’s second vote would have been unnecessary, but the commission’s first vote was unplanned. Discussions and action at a special or emergency meeting “shall be limited to items listed on the agenda in the notice,” according to Kentucky’s Open Meetings Act. The Feb. 24 special-called fiscal court meeting was billed as an opportunity for the commissioners to ask the county attorney’s office questions about the proposed 450-acre landfill. There was nothing listed on the agenda about a decision to rescind the contract.

The commissioners “wanted to be certain” that their decision to rescind the contract was valid, Commissioner Ronald Scott said early Wednesday morning after the second vote. But Scott and other commissioners have refused to answer questions about whether they believe their decision could land the county in federal court.

Jones said he has been in contact with representatives from USA Waste and Recycling but opted not to comment on legal questions due to what he called “pending or possible litigation.” Neither the Connecticut-based company nor an attorney representing its Lexington affiliate have responded to repeated Herald-Leader requests for comment.

If the county doesn’t hold up its end of the deal, it could be obligated to pay back the company for what it has already spent on the project, plus an estimate of the profits it would have earned during the remaining portion of the term and additional expenditures the company may incur because of the county’s decision to back out, according to the agreement.

The parties agreed to cover “reasonable attorney’s fees, court costs and litigation expenses” if either defaults on its obligations. Failure to do so could open the door to arbitration or a lawsuit.

Pike County’s existing landfill on Ford Mountain near the community of Meta is nearing capacity.

An ongoing expansion project there could buy the county a few more years, but a larger, full-scale expansion could cost upward of $18 million, which simply isn’t in the county’s budget or borrowing power, Jones said. It would also require cutting into the toe of a tall berm holding back decades worth of garbage from flooding the valley below. A public elementary school sits at the bottom of that valley on Kentucky Highway 194.

Meanwhile, the abandoned TECO Energy coal mine site that was being explored for development is holding back coal slurry impoundment more than 2,000 feet wide sitting a few hundred feet above Shelby Creek, a Levisa Fork tributary, where much of the region draws its drinking water.

Deputy County Judge-Executive William Spears, who has toured the mine site, said the water level there is sitting at the cusp of spilling over. County officials have called that an “environmental disaster” waiting to happen, and they could land up to 50 jobs by passing the cleanup effort onto a private company, like USA Waste and Recycling.

Simply put, that partnership was the county’s last best option, Jones said. He challenged commissioners Tuesday night to come up with a better option, but other than a few “ideas” or “thoughts,” like an industrial shredder, the commission had none.

Jones said the project promised 100 construction jobs and 50 permanent posts in a community rapidly losing coal mining revenue and population as a result. He was eager to explore redeveloping an environmentally hazardous site in a way that could bring at least some new revenue.

‘No’ no matter what, residents say

The decision to rescind the contract was just a reflection of the community’s will, Scott said.

He said he believes Pike County residents are prepared to pay higher garbage collection fees for their trash to be shipped off to another community because they do not want their mountain towns to be known as the region’s dump. Only six counties in Kentucky own and operate their own landfills. The majority of the state’s garbage is handled by private companies.

“People do not want [to have a dump],” Scott said. “They put their foot down.”

The landfill promised to ship in tons of garbage by rail and truck into Pike County from surrounding counties and states.

Hundreds of protesters have packed the fiscal court chambers in downtown Pikeville to verbally spar with Jones over the proposal and voice their disapproval for what they call the lack of transparency surrounding the yearslong project.

“The people of Pike County, we’re not stupid,” said Nathan Little, a resident running for District 3 magistrate in the 2026 election. “We do not need to be lectured. We do not need to be managed. We do not need to be talked to like we don’t understand what’s happening in our own county.”

Many of those who spoke during the public comment Tuesday are running for office and called on Jones and the commission to be more transparent.

Jones, who is not running for reelection this fall, has been the subject of intense scrutiny since a 2023 referendum he opposed returned the county to a magisterial system. In November, voters will eliminate the three at-large elected commissioners in favor of six district-specific magistrates.

First elected in 2018, Jones took office two years after residents voted to oust the original magistrate government so commissioners could represent all voters equally. The referendum brought an abrupt halt to the experiment, and the county is now in the process of redrawing its legislative maps.

Jones has said he disagrees with the decision and fears it will mark a return of “good-ol’-boy politics” in Pike County.

Both the failed landfill project and the magistrate shift highlights Jones’ growing unpopularity in a once solidly Democratic county where politics are rapidly shifting to the right. Yet residents and candidates who spoke to the Herald-Leader Tuesday insist the landfill project isn’t political.

They just “don’t want to be the region’s dumping ground,” resident Sammy Wilson, another magistrate candidate, said

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