Lo and behold, another year has passed and Pickens County is still not safe from the possibility of becoming home to a toxic coal ash dump.

A Court of Appeals ruling issued in January 2020 had seemed to put a nail in the coffin of a company’s hopes to pull off a lucrative switcheroo and dispose of waste from coal-fired power plants instead of construction and demolition waste as the county had approved.

Although the Legislature changed state law to ban coal ash from the type of landfills allowed in Pickens County, MRR has continued to press its lawsuit against the county, filed in 2016, claiming breach of contract. Coal ash contains toxic substances such as mercury,

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