Proponents of a local solution to Warren County’s garbage disposal woes will get a chance to submit proposals to county supervisors.

Supervisors voted 4-1 Monday to readvertise for proposals to dispose of the 200 tons of municipal solid waste produced daily in the county and Vicksburg.

Household garbage is disposed of by BFI, whose contract with the city expires in May.

During a special session Thursday, Vicksburg officials rejected three proposals received in June that brought criticism from supporters of a local landfill option. They were unable to participate in the process because the request for proposals specified transferring garbage outside of the county, as has been done since the county closed its two landfillls a decade ago.

District 4 Supervisor Bill Lauderdale voted against the new round of requests that will open the door to any proposal for legal waste disposal.

“Most of the people in Warren County don’t want a landfill in the county; especially in their back yard,” Lauderdale said.

The new specifications for disposal of waste will call for a 5-year or 10-year contract for the operation of a transfer station or for the operation of a city-county owned transfer station in addition to any other legal means of disposal. The operator would not be allowed to accept garbage from outside the county.

The addition of other legal means will open the proposal process up to any subtitle D landfill, including one in the county. No subtitle D landfills currently are on the county’s master plan for waste management except for a 10-acre permit granted to Billy Ewell on property he owns off Jeff Davis Road.

Ewell, who has threatened to sue the county if he is not allowed to submit a proposal, is currently preparing that 10-acre site for operation. In 1996, he sued the county for the value of that land after supervisors denied a public hearing required before the 10-acre site already permitted on the property could be expanded.

The board of supervisors has also heard proposals from area businessmen for a 320-acre tract two miles north of the Culkin Road overpass on U.S. 61 North and from Memphis-based Real Earth United States Enterprise, which has proposed a 84,500-square-foot composting facility. Both proposals would accept garbage from outside the county.

Before 1990, Warren County owned and operated two landfills, one on Standard Hill Road near the present site of Sherman Avenue Elementary, and one on Dana Road. Both were sealed in anticipation of new federal standards for waste disposal.