Tri-County Industries Inc. got the go-ahead Tuesday from the state Department of Environmental Protection to proceed with its effort to reopen a Mercer County landfill.

Tri-County offered up a new plan to keep birds that could pose a danger to airplanes at the nearby Grove City Airport away from the trash being buried, DEP said in a news release.

That plan, which includes a professional bird watcher and fireworks, satisfied the agency’s objections to the company’s latest attempt to re-open the landfill in Liberty and Pine townships outside Grove City, DEP said.

The state’s decision doesn’t mean the landfill can re-open. It closes out the first phase of approval, the permit review, and allows Tri-County to seek a technical review of the landfill plan by DEP, the agency said.

The landfill has been a flashpoint for local environmental activists, who have opposed what they predict will become “trash mountain” along Interstate 79 near Prime Outlets at Grove City.

The possibility of bird-plane collisions was the reason that DEP rejected the company’s latest attempt to re-open the site in November 2006. The proposed landfill is about a mile away from Grove City Airport in Springfield Township. The site on state Route 208 is just east of Interstate 79 and the airport is on the west side.

DEP said “new information” provided when the company appealed that decision to the state Environmental Hearing Board prompted the agency to reverse itself.

“Tri-County has sufficiently proven to us that they can mitigate this hazard,” DEP Regional Director Kelly Burch said. “With this additional information, Tri-County has demonstrated that the benefits of the project outweigh the known and potential environmental harms.”

According to DEP, the company based its bird mitigation measures on a system that worked at the Atlantic County Utilities Authority Landfill in New Jersey. Under the plan, DEP said Tri-County will:

• Bury waste that might attract birds only at night.

• Continuously operate equipment in the landfill's disposal area to prevent birds from landing or feeding.

• Hire someone to monitor the presence of any birds.

• Set up a pyrotechnics system “similar to fireworks” to disperse any birds gathering.

Tri-County’s latest effort to re-open the site — which was a landfill for generations before tougher regulations closed in 1990 — began in 2004. The company currently operates a transfer station at the site where garbage is sorted and moved to other landfills.