International Paper will be allowed to build a landfill on its property on Mississippi 3 in Redwood because the Warren County Board of Supervisors Monday amended the Vicksburg Warren County Solid Waste Management Plan.

In a related matter, the supervisors set a 9 a.m. Thursday public hearing on a Go Zone bond issue for the company.

The landfill decision followed a public hearing at the board’s Monday morning meeting. Board attorney Randy Sherard said the public hearing was required by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality because there are no provisions in the county’s solid waste plan for a landfill at IP.

According to the company’s application, the proposed 18-acre landfill will be east of its mill on the south side of Mississippi 3, across from the plant. It is expected to have a life of 20 years.

John Adams, IP environmental health and safety manager, said most of the rubbish going into the landfill will be ash from wood burned to operate the plant’s boilers. According to the plant’s application, other waste going to the landfill will be construction and demolition debris from work at the mill.

“We were using the ash to construct levees around the plant,” he said. “That work is completed, and we have no other useful outlet for the ash. We have no alternative but to put it in a landfill.”

Adams said the landfill will pose no threat to ground and surface water in the area.

The Thursday public hearing will involve the balance of the $40 million in Go Zone bonds for which IP applied in 2010. The money is expected to pay for building the landfill.

Sherard said the hearing is part of the federal regulations concerning the bonds. He said the amount of the bonds to be issued was undetermined.

GO Zone, or Gulf Opportunity Zone, bonds were approved by Congress after Hurricane Katrina to provide financial assistance for rebuilding local and regional economies in Gulf Coast states affected by Katrina and other hurricanes in 2005.

International Paper applied for the state revenue bonds to finance improvements at the Mississippi 3 plant. The board on Sept. 7 approved $11 million in bonds for a solid wastewater treatment facility tied to the company’s upgrades to its paper-making equipment to make them more energy efficient.

Sherard said the county acts as a conduit for the bonds, and International Paper will pay them off.

“The taxpayers will not be responsible for them and they will not affect the county’s bonded indebtedness,” he said.