Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 23, 1991 TAG: 9102230420
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE/ NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"It just gives us a little breathing room," said Craig County Administrator Richard Flora.
With the additional 18 months, the county can better plan how and where to bury its garbage, Flora said.
The delay also enables his rural, low-budget county to spread the cost of compliance over several years, he said.
"The same thing is going to happen, it's just going to happen 18 months later," Flora said.
But opponents say that when it comes to protecting the environment, delays can sometimes be disastrous.
"Another 18 months is another 18 months of ground-water pollution," said Department of Waste Management director Cynthia Bailey.
The change would delay localities' compliance with the state regulations from July 1, 1992, to Jan. 1, 1994. It does not apply to private landfills.
Bailey and Secretary of Natural Resources Elizabeth Haskell opposed the bill as it moved swiftly through the legislature.
And they still oppose it, Bailey said.
"There are still some poorly constructed landfills out there in Virginia. The sooner we get them out . . . and into modern facilities, the better we can prevent ground-water pollution, surface-water pollution, methane, the whole gamut."
She said the regulations were enacted in December 1988, giving localities plenty of time to bring their dumps up to snuff. She also said the law allows her agency to grant variances for economic hardship on a case-by-case basis.
Bailey declined to say what her formal recommendations on the bill would be before it is sent to Gov. Doug Wilder's office.
Laura Dillard, the governor's press secretary, said Wilder has not taken a position. "He'll wait and see what comes to his desk."
But Flora predicted it would be "political suicide" for the governor to veto the bill, which passed the House 73-24 and the Senate 32-4.
The law requires landfills to have ground-water monitoring wells, double liners and leachate collection systems to catch contaminated runoff - none of which is cheap.
It will cost localities hundreds of thousands of dollars per acre to upgrade their old landfills or cap them off and open new ones.
"Every three years, we have to have a million and a half bucks" just for solid waste management, said Floyd County Administrator Randy Arno.
An environmental consultant estimated that Floyd County faces a tab of about $12 million by 2003 to comply with the regulations.
Arno, like many other Virginia local government executives, had dreaded the July 1, 1992, deadline, especially as the state dumped its own budget problems on counties and cities by cutting back state aid.
"The counties were told they were going to get money for public education and other areas that they're not getting," said Sen. Virgil Goode, D-Rocky Mount, who wrote the bill.
But Allen Grimes, an attorney with Environmental Defense Fund which lobbied against the bill, said the delay unfairly penalizes localities that were striving to meet the original deadline.
by CNB