Fight over proposed Kansas City landfill will return to Missouri legislature

Rep. Mike Haffner, R-Pleasant Hill, speaks during the 2022 legislative session. Haffner is sponsoring legislation that would block a proposed landfill on the boundary between Kansas City and Raymore (Tim Bommel/Missouri House Communications)

Communities bordering the southern stretch of Kansas City and their state legislators are gearing up once again to fight developers’ plan to build a landfill near a high-end golf course subdivision.

State Rep. Mike Haffner, R-Pleasant Hill, pre-filed a bill ahead of the Missouri legislative session, set to begin in January, aimed at stopping the facility from moving in.

It’s Haffner’s second attempt at blocking the landfill. He first introduced a version of the bill this spring after news of the proposed landfill began circulating. The legislation would make it harder for a developer to build a waste disposal facility on the Kansas City border.

Versions of the bill were also pre-filed in the Senate by Sen. Rick Brattin, R-Harrisonville, and Sen. Mike Cierpiot, R-Lee’s Summit.

Legislators representing the area have raised concerns that the proposed facility would pollute the surrounding watershed, cause a nuisance to neighbors and harm homeowners’ property values.

“There’s going to be ongoing problems with birds, with litter, with the amount of trucks going up and down the highways and increasing the litter, the noise, the impact on our kids and on our residents,” Haffner said in an interview with The Independent.

KC Recycle & Waste Solutions, owned by a married couple from the area, has been exploring building a landfill at the southern tip of Kansas City near where it borders Raymore since at least last year. The site, just south of Missouri Highway 150, is close to the Creekmoor golf course community with homes priced between $500,000 and $1 million.

The Kansas City-Raymore border is just far enough from the site that developers wouldn’t need Raymore city officials’ approval to build on the Kansas City site.

Haffner’s legislation would change that, requiring that municipalities within one mile of a landfill built in an adjacent city be allowed to sign off before the state can issue an environmental permit.

“This location is inappropriate. We need landfills, we need economic development, but let’s do it the right way,” he said.

Haffner and Sen. Rick Brattin, R-Harrisonville, sponsored similar legislation during the last legislative session. At the time, Jennifer Monheiser, one of the owners of KC Recycle & Waste Solutions, likened the legislation to changing the rules in the middle of a game.

Monheiser’s company hired 18 lobbyists last spring to fight the legislation.The city of Raymore has three lobbyists.

A spokeswoman for Monheiser declined to comment on Haffner’s pre-filed bill and the upcoming session.

Haffner and Brattin’s legislation didn’t make it across the finish line last spring. It stalled in the Senate when another Republican lawmaker — who received a campaign contribution from a political action committee associated with one of the lobbying firms working for KC Recycling & Waste Solutions — launched a filibuster.

The next day, Brattin retaliated with a filibuster of his own, bringing the Senate to a halt for nine hours with just a day left for the Missouri General Assembly to pass its annual budget.

Brattin relented after striking a deal with fellow senators to place an item in the state budget to fund a study by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources into the possible effects a landfill would have on area schools, residents, the environment and property values. Gov. Mike Parson later vetoed that provision of the budget.

Haffner said conversations about stopping the landfill had continued after the spring session and into the summer and fall.

In July, opponents of the landfill launched a political action committee, Kill the Fill PAC, that has raised more than $100,000 since then.

An evaluation commissioned by the Kansas City City Council, which adopted a resolution opposing the landfill, found the metropolitan area landfills are currently filled to 67% of their total capacity and will be full within 15 years.

In a statement after the city’s findings were released in October, Kill the Fill PAC, said it was “pleased the report has confirmed there is no immediate need for a new landfill in the Kansas City region, and that a solid waste facility in close proximity to homes and schools has detrimental impacts on the community’s health and environment.”

Earlier this month, the PAC said it appreciated the lawmakers’ efforts to expand the buffer zone between residents and landfills.

“We are hopeful that lawmakers will put the health and safety of thousands of Missourians ahead of the financial gain of one business.”

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and Twitter.