MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -- A Channel 4 News report about radioactive dumping has enraged some and caught others by surprise.

Video: Officials Push Lawmakers To End Radiactive Dumping

The county committee that oversees Murfreesboro's giant landfill is pushing for the governor, local and state lawmakers to stop dumping radioactive material at Middle Point Landfill.

Tuesday night, members of the public works and planning committee bristled that they were never told that low-level radioactive waste had been coming into the dump for almost 20 years.

A Channel 4 I-Team investigation uncovered a practice the state of Tennessee approved, but nobody else seemed to know about.

Tennessee has been allowing companies from all over the country to dump radioactive waste into ordinary trash landfills, including the Middle Point landfill in Rutherford County.

More than 10 million pounds of radioactive material was dumped in Murfreesboro in a single year.

There are at least four of these facilities in Tennessee, which is more than any other state in the country.

The processors of the waste have licenses with the state’s division of Radiological Health.

For nearly 20 years, the state has made it cheap and convenient for all of them to put low-level radioactive waste out with trash, and some are calling for it to stop.

Rutherford County officials in charge of the landfill said they had no idea the dumping was going on.

“It’s a matter of trust for the people handling that waste out there in that facility. Not being on the front end and telling us that’s there. It’s a matter of trust to the state agencies that didn’t bother to tell us what’s going on there. I’m really livid with both those groups,” said Rutherford County Commissioner Robert Peay.

Much of the 10 million pounds dumped two years ago came from the dismantling of Big Rock Point, one of the nation’s first nuclear reactors that was dismantled and turned into a public park.

A petition is now being passed around by citizens to stop the dumping of low-level radioactive waste at the fill.

The state has promised to hold public meetings and officials said they are waiting on tests of the city’s drinking water and landfill runoff.

“In a couple of weeks, hopefully they will have their tests back and they can have these meetings. They can discuss this and explore this and I’ve told all of them repeatedly one of the biggest problems is they are not communicating and fully disclosing what’s happening and telling us every detail of the whole process,” said Rutherford County Mayor Ernest Burgess.

Channel 4 News has requested more information about where the waste originates.

The state referred us to the companies that treat this material and those processing companies have yet to respond to our request.