The temporarily closed city landfill on Armstrong Road may not ever be open to the public again.

City council members will decide next week whether to only allow the public works department to use the landfill moving forward in an effort to extend the facility’s useful life.

City Engineer Kevin Stafford presented that recommendation Wednesday during a city council work session at City Hall, along with recommending the city pay for an updated capacity survey at the landfill. The 23-acre property, which the city leases from private landowners, has served as a dumpsite for rubbish and construction waste for more than 30 years before being closed to the public recently for maintenance. It does not accept household garbage.

Usage at the site has dropped drastically since 2014, when Stafford said it took in 28,000 tons, due to customers finding other places to dispose of that waste, mainly the Golden Triangle Regional Landfill near West Point. In 2025, the city’s landfill accepted only 3,385 tons of waste, according to records Stafford presented to the council.

At its five-year average tonnage rate of about 6,800 annually, Stafford said the landfill “theoretically” has 1.94 years of useful life. To obtain a more solid number, the city needs to commission a topographical survey, using drones, at a cost of up to $5,000.

“Two years could be right or wrong,” Stafford said, noting the landfill’s last topographically surveyed in 2010. “Secondly, … once you do this, you may find some of these materials may be outside of the permitted area. So then you’ve got to move those things back inside the permitted area.”

Roofing contractors make up most of the landfill’s private use, Stafford said. Closing the site to the public will expand its useful life by some measure. He is working with public works to determine the department’s specific tonnage to help nail down that time frame.

Stafford told The Dispatch after the work session that once the council approves the topographical survey, it should only take about 60 days for him to bring back those results. Then the city will have hard data on when the landfill will reach capacity as it plans what to do next – whether that’s building a new landfill or carrying rubbish to the regional facility.

Mayor Stephen Jones supports closing the landfill to the public permanently, then starting to budget for next steps as soon as next fiscal year. That would include planning for the “substantial cost” of capping the current landfill – hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more than $1 million.

He said he also supports eventually taking rubbish to the regional landfill, rather than opening a new city landfill.

“We lose money on the landfill,” Jones said. “So, it makes no sense to keep operating a landfill.”

Jim Brigham, the city’s chief financial officer, told The Dispatch the landfill routinely loses about $150,000 a year.

Other business

In other business at the work session, the council:
■ approved purchasing 14 tax-forfeited properties from the state for the city’s Blight Elimination Program;
■ approved the low bid of $118,000 from JMM Farm and Company to install lights at Propst Park;
■ hired Fulgham Tree Preservation for a tree inventory in the historic portion of Friendship Cemetery at a cost of $9,500 (funded by a Mississippi Forestry Commission grant); and
■ promoted the administrative assistant at fire and rescue to executive assistant to the chief and raised the employee’s hourly wage from $15.38 to $18.50.

Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.

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