Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 6, 1990 TAG: 9004060945
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The legislation would require every state to develop a 20-year solid-waste management plan. Each state's plan would be subject to Environmental Protection Agency approval and would require the state to specify the amount and type of waste it anticipates generating, how and where it would dispose of that waste, and how much of it would be recycled.
Only if a state can verify that it cannot handle its solid waste through recycling or intrastate dumping would it be allowed to export garbage. Once the EPA approves a state's waste-management plan, that state then wins the right to limit or ban out-of-state garbage. That would come only after the state has proven it can handle its own wastes responsibly - cleanly and appropriately, to use your words.
As for the alleged dangers of the legislation, let's think again. Believe me, for anyone living near Kim-Stan to become "blind" to America's solid-waste problem is just impossible. I invite your editorial staff to come spend a day at the landfill and watch thousands of tons of America's garbage pour off the trucks. Western Virginians certainly know our garbage is no better than anyone else's - but being buried in anyone's garbage is no fun. It's not geography that troubles Alleghany Countians - it's stink and pollution and profiteering without accountability.
The Olin/Boucher legislation "a sloppy answer"? Pun intended or not, your editorial is vulnerable to the same adjective.
\ J.V. SCHROEDER\ CLIFTON FORGE
by CNB