MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Whitehaven church members are concerned about a landfill that could be built in their backyard.
“We have a food pantry we serve the community every week, we have a community dinner, reading camp eight weeks long in the summer,” Leesa Downes said of the offerings at Longstreet United Methodist Church.
But the church administrator said she was worried about a notice they got last week showing developers want to turn the lot of trees behind their property into a landfill.
“It’s not like a garbage landfill. It’s construction material: tires, that kind of derbis,” Downes said.
The landfill would be on Holmes Road butted between the church and Forest Hill Cemetery.
“They’d be facing the same thing,” Downes said of the cemetery. “People having funerals graveside will be faced with the noise, the look, everything… We’re hoping they can find another location.”
But other parishioners said the were open, pending they got more information.
“It could be beneficial, it could not be,” Mathis said.
Developers will hold a community informational meeting on Friday at 6:30 p.m. at the nearby St. Paul Baptist Church on Holmes Road.
WREG reached out to the owner of Blaylock and Brown Construction Company, responsible for the proposal but had not heard at the time of publication.