Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 30, 1993 TAG: 9308300077
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
For Botetourt County, it may be a million-dollar question:
Move or stay?
County officials are trying to decide whether to move out of their landfill this fall.
If they don't move from the landfill - which has been operating for years under older, less-taxing rules - they fear they're going to be stuck with regulatory burdens that could prove costly.
State and federal officials had set Oct. 9 as the deadline for most local governments to move to tighter-regulated landfills or face having their existing ones come under the new rules.
But now the federal government is saying: Maybe not. The Environmental Protection Agency says it may extend the deadline six months or even a year for some smaller landfills.
Botetourt County Administrator Jerry Burgess says it is unclear which deadline the county should follow.
The confusion is more than just a minor irritation.
Botetourt's landfill still has at least a year's worth of space, and the county would love to use that room. The landfill is cheaper to run than a new one would be. Burgess estimates that staying in the landfill another year could save county taxpayers as much as $1 million.
"What we're trying to do is minimize the costs to our citizens," Burgess said. "We've got extra room in our landfill. Why shouldn't we stay in? Every year you save, you're saving a million dollars."
New state and federal rules for landfills are tougher than ever. Burgess says stiffer environmental rules are needed, but the way they are being created by "two rather distant and large bureaucracies" has produced hassles and escalating costs for local governments.
Burgess says he and other local officials have been frustrated by contending with incredibly complex landfill rules that keep changing and, too often, conflict.
"The more you get into this, the more you want to pull your hair out," he said.
Larry Land, intergovernment relations director of the Virginia Association of Counties, says he has received several calls from local governments that are struggling to prepare for the new rules.
"The climate of confusion is very understandable, given that the state regs and the federal regs have not quite conformed yet," Land said. "This is not just a Virginia problem; this is a nationwide problem."
Norm Auldridge, regional director for the waste-management division of the state Department of Environmental Quality, understands local governments' frustration.
The state is frustrated, too. Federal officials published a proposal in late July that would extend the deadline at least six months - until April 9, 1994.
The feds have yet to give final approval to the extension - and probably won't until some time in September.
With the Oct. 9 deadline looming, Auldridge said, "that is not giving Virginia a lot of time to respond. . . . You've got to realize that we don't know, as an agency, what EPA's final decision will be."
State regulators' hands are tied, because the General Assembly has passed the Oct. 9 deadline into law. Only the legislature could change that, but it doesn't meet until January.
Auldridge says, however, that landfill operators can apply to the state for variances that would allow them to keep operating their landfills longer under the old rules - with a few stipulations.
The state "would certainly work with those localities" and try to respond to their requests for variances as quickly as it can, Auldridge said.
But Burgess worries that Botetourt County might get caught in a costly bind.
Without a change in the state law, he says, the county could be hit with increased environmental requirements if it operates past the Oct. 9 deadline. The length of time the county would be required to monitor the old landfill for ground-water pollution would increase. Instead of monitoring the site for 10 years after it closes, the county would have to run checks for 30 years.
That sort of monitoring costs between $20,000 and $75,000 a year, Burgess said. "And that's today's prices."
But the prospect of getting another six months or a year out of the landfill is tempting. Burgess says the county probably will stay in past the deadline if it has some assurance that the General Assembly will vote to extend the deadline this winter - and, in effect, give amnesty to local governments that stay in their old landfills past Oct. 9.
But he says there's no way to know what the General Assembly is going to do - especially since the state Department of Environmental Quality won't say what it will recommend to the legislature about extending the deadline.
All of Botetourt's landfill space is located in a sprawling area of hills and ridges off Virginia 779 in the Haymakertown section.
The old site is a little over 10 acres; the new site has 47 acres. The county has another 200 acres, which it gained in a land swap with the U.S. Forest Service, that it is saving for future landfill needs.
In many counties across the state, running a landfill is second only to operating schools in its drain on the local budget; changes in environmental laws will make it even more expensive.
Burgess says Botetourt tried to get ahead of the game 2 1/2 years ago by applying to the state for a permit to open a new landfill under temporary regulations. The county spent thousands of dollars on engineering consultants and staff time to put together the application. But, Burgess says, the application sat for a year and a half with only preliminary review by the state.
By the first of this year, the state still had given no final word to the county - and the regulations that the application had been written under had been changed. County officials, forced to come up with a new proposal, hired the engineers again.
The county submitted a new application July 6. The Department of Environmental Quality has yet to make a decision.
by CNB