Members of the board of directors for the Southeastern Public Service Authority can’t seem to get out of their own way lately. Standing in the long and growing shadow of a financial disaster, on Wednesday, they were looking for ways to blame the city of Suffolk for their latest goof.

It seems that a contractor had been moving dirt from the area that will one day be the newest cell at the regional landfill located off of U.S. Route 58, at least until the city heard of the activity and issued a stop-work order.

As it turns out, digging a hole to get dirt to be used to cover another hole is remarkably similar to the activity that would take place if the new landfill cell were actually under construction. A hole is a hole, in other words. That being the case, there are a number of stipulations that must be met for the work to be covered under the waste authority’s conditional use permit.

Reasonable people might have wondered whether the work SPSA’s contractor was doing would trigger the conditional use permit. Sadly, SPSA has suffered from a severe shortage of “reasonable people” through the years. And as with so many other of the regional waste authority’s mistakes, this one has proven to be expensive.

For its part, Suffolk is unable to do much other than follow the law. To do less would be unethical. The authority must work within that law, as well.