Mike Wolanin | The Republic Steve Schroer, left, helps Brian Taylor prepare his remote control plane for a flight during a small dedication ceremony at Jim Murray Flying Field for remote control aircraft in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024. The field was named after the late Jim Murray, the former Bartholomew County Solid Waste Manager. Murray made arrangements for the Bartholomew County R.C. Flyers Club to use the old landfill as an airfield.
In all likelihood, any person hired to lead the Bartholomew County Solid Waste Management District just as a search for a new county landfill gets underway won’t win a popularity contest.
But now that the protests over the new landfill’s location 30 years ago have faded, and the new site near Walesboro has about 60 years of life, the legacy of the late James M. Murray is finally getting what many feel is overdue, but well-deserved recognition.
Ten years after his retirement, and more than a year since his death, 18 members or supporters of the Bartholomew County RC Fliers congregated on the east side of the former Petersville landfill. They came to formally dedicated the facility as the “Jim Murray RC Flying Field.”
Club secretary Mike Bealmer says he recalls getting a 2007 telephone call from Murray, who was trying to find a use for the former Petersville landfill. At the time, Bealmer was a member of the Johnson County Radio Control Flyers.
“After talking on the phone, I met Jim at the Johnson County field and showed him around,” Bealmer recalled. “I let him know what type of stuff we do there. He mentioned they were looking for a use for the former county landfill in Petersville. I said it would be a wonderful place (for flying remote-controlled aircraft).”
Today, the RC Fliers maintain the 4.4 acres flying field that includes a parking lot and an outdoor shelter.
Charter RC Fliers member Stan Durnal said when he saw the Murray had died, one of his first thoughts was that the field needed to be named after him. The membership voted to approve the idea.
Murray was very passionate about reaching his goals that included caring for Bartholomew County’s environment, according to his successor, Heather Siesel. But getting the community to share that passion was another story.
In the 1960s, most Bartholomew County residents wanted to pay little to nothing for trash disposal. Property off Tannehill Road near Taylorsville had signs posted in the 1960s that stated “no dumping.” But not only did local residents continue to illegally dump on the site, someone shot several bullet holes through the sign.
In the same era, the so-called city dump in Columbus was located along East Fork White River south of the former sewage plant on Water Street. There was also a Garden City dump where water contamination has long been a concern, an Azalia dump that pushed refuse into a swamp, and similar facilities in Rockcreek Township and St. Louis Crossing.
In the early 1970s, the city and county tried a low-cost alternative. About $700,000 was invested to create a grinding mill operation that was supposed to pulverize garbage and leave only a slight musty smell. But the mill didn’t even come close to addressing the problem, according to former Bartholomew County Councilwoman Evelyn Pence.
“(The grinding mill) was something many of us deeply regretted,” Pence said in an interview last spring. “It was a step that we realize was a mistake.”
Milling suspended in 1972, and a temporary landfill was developed off South Gladstone Ave while work got underway to develop a complete sanitary landfill at a 117-acres quarry east of Petersville in 1974.
But since one-third of the Petersville facility was made up of foundry sand from the now-defunct Golden Castings, Inc., the lifetime of the facility was greatly reduced. Eventually, another location was found for disposal of the foundry sand.
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) gave the Petersville 11 unsatisfactory reports over four years. IDEM’s biggest concerns were a lack of soil coverage, leachate and blowing trash. One IDEM inspector who was critical of the landfill’s operation was Murray.
The purchase of an additional 16 acres of land kept the Petersville facility open through most of the 1990s. After Murray was hired to be director of the Bartholomew County Solid Waste Management District in July 1990, he worked to convince local authorities that more costly steps in the operation of the landfill would save money in the long run.
One year after Murray’s arrival, his organization began charging $20 a ton in gate fees at the landfill. It was the first time in the history of Bartholomew County that manufacturers were charged for the amount of refuse they placed in the landfill, and a number of business owners were not happy about it.
In 1994, Murray was instrumental in convincing the Bartholomew County Council to approve a solid waste disposal tax of 18 cents per $100 assessed valuation. That allowed the county to start obtaining the technology and manpower to address waste disposal problems.
The search for a new landfill then created a turbulent environment in local government, county commissioner Larry Kleinhenz said in a 2014 interview.
Today, Murray is credited with avoiding higher expenses by not contracting to have local garbage shipped out-of-county, with successfully advocating for recycling in Columbus, and with the development of a yard-waste waste program. It was under Murray’s watch that a cardboard-reduction program was instituted that not only substantially decreased landfill volume, but also generated a small profit.
“Jim’s efforts go well beyond the standard of a faithful public servant and clearly exemplify the term of above and beyond the call for duty,” former Solid Waste Management board president Jack Rubino wrote in a 1994 guest column published in The Republic. “Murray and his staff put in plenty of uncompensated overtime hours toward moving Bartholomew County ahead in the science and art of solid waste management and have created a program that is an example for the whole state.”
“He really strived to do the research, never gave knee-jerk reactions and made informed decisions,” Siesel recalled when Murray retired. “Jim has really helped to guide us down the right path to give us the biggest bang for the buck.”
And when Murray retired at the aged of 56 in 2014, the greatest loss to the county “was his knowledge of state and federal requirements, as well as his ability to cut through bureaucratic red tape,” Kleinhenz said.
Right up to his death on July 18, 2023, Murray continued to have many supporters. It was Rubino who referred to Murray as “far and away, the most important resource that this community has enjoyed with regard to the management of solid waste.”
