Three weeks ago the town of Ellington took steps to prevent the future construction of any landfills within its jurisdiction.

The town board held a public hearing on the issue, taking questions and comments from local residents.

“We will be working on a town law to not have any landfills because we all have well water here,” said Town Supervisor Karen Bifaro.

The board passed a resolution issuing a moratorium on landfills within the town limits, and a local law will be forthcoming on the issue. The public hearing was scheduled in part due to recent discussion of landfill construction within the town of Carroll.

Officials in Carroll are involved in a years-long legal dispute relating to the former Jones-Carroll Landfill established on Dodge Road in 1984. Sealand Waste LLC has intervened on behalf of Jones-Carroll in that case, and has campaigned for the establishment of a new landfill.

Sealand Waste is a division of Sealand Contractors Corp., a private enterprise headquartered in Rush. A parcel of land in Ellington on 28th Creek Road was purchased around 2008 by an owner with family connections to Sealand Waste.

“I believe it was 2008, it has been purchased for a long time,” Bifaro said. “It was a concern, what town of Carroll went through. I had the concern because of something like that happening in our town where we have our own water wells. I just thought it was better for the whole town if something like that does not develop.”

Jim Daigler of Daigler Engineering, which represents Sealand Waste, clarified that the 28th Creek Road site was intended for mitigation wetlands and drainage ways.

“Sealand has absolutely no intention of building a landfill in the town of Ellington,” Daigler said. “We understand someone from the town of Carroll contacted folks in Ellington and advised them that Sealand had purchased property there. There are federal wetlands and drainageways that will be filled when the landfill on Dodge Road in the town of Carroll is built. To compensate for this loss of wetland/drainage ways, Sealand was required to create mitigation wetland and drainage ways off site.”

Daigler said that Sealand had intended to create a mitigation wetland site nearer to the proposed landfill on Dodge Road, but had not been able to do so. Daigler also noted that he had presented the proposed wetland site plan to a member of the Ellington town board.