Environmentalists lose appeal of landfill near ancient burial site in US

Environmentalists lose appeal of landfill near ancient burial site in US
The Associated PressPublished: December 8, 2007

MADISON, Illinois: An independent pollution-control agency has rejected environmentalists' claims that a planned landfill could desecrate possible burial grounds near the ruins of a once-thriving prehistoric city.

Environmentalists say the expanded landfill site would be within 2,100 feet (640 meters) of the Cahokia Mounds site, which was among the among the most complex, sophisticated societies of prehistoric North America. As many as 20,000 people lived during its peak of 1100 to 1200 A.D.

The Illinois Sierra Club and American Bottom Conservancy failed to show that the city's approval process for a landfill near the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site was "fundamentally unfair," the Illinois Pollution Control Board ruled Thursday.

The St. Louis suburb, which approved the landfill in February, would get roughly $1 million (€680,000) a year in fees from Waste Management Inc., the United States' largest garbage hauler.

Opponents on Friday said they were weighing whether to challenge the matter further.

Messages left Friday with John Papa, Madison's attorney, were not immediately returned. Papa has said that the city followed appropriate steps to consider the landfill "and make a reasoned judgment on it."

Bill Plunkett, a spokesman for the company, called the pollution board's decision "the right one" and "supported by the evidence."

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/08/america/NA-GEN-US-Landfill-Archaeological-Site.php