I sort of hate to bring this up since most of you probably think it’s a long-dead issue, but the legal battle over a proposed coal ash landfill near Liberty is raging on.

In fact, lawyers representing Pickens County have filed a motion asking for a jury trial.

This fight has taken all kinds of nasty twists and turns ever since the local legislative delegation got the state law changed to specifically bar coal ash from being deposited in a Class 2 landfill, which is the type of facility that a company called MRR Pickens wants to operate. The company, however, says the county breached its contract, which predates the change in the law.

The two sides have been at each other’s throats in depositions, motions and maneuvers.

“MRR has engaged in obstruction and delay extensively in this case, in addition to its ongoing misrepresentations and deceit from June of 2014 to the present,” lawyers for the county assert in one of the recent court filings.

I checked in with Gary Poliakoff, the lead attorney representing Pickens County, to see if anything has happened since Jan. 29, when he filed the motion asking for a jury trial.

“That motion and several other motions remain pending,” he wrote in an emailed reply. “Hopefully they’ll get scheduled and heard soon, but no date yet.

“Also, we are hopeful that trial will take place before the end of this year.”

The lead lawyer for MRR didn’t reply to my email.

So, here it is, approaching the middle of 2019, and this dispute, which dates back to late 2015, may be coming to a head sometime

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