Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 9, 1993 TAG: 9310090152
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KAREN BARNES and CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Private trash companies seemed to target cash-strapped counties with ample open space - and weak or nonexistent zoning - and set up shop.
But starting today, many Southwest Virginia localities are hiring private haulers and shipping their trash to other communities. Even out of state.
Some are going to North Carolina, some to Tennessee, and others, like Salem and Craig and Bath counties, are sending their solid waste to a huge commercial landfill in Amelia County.
Localities and industries with their own landfills had three options to meet today's state and federally imposed deadline: Close, install costly pollution prevention systems, or seek an extension.
Floyd County chose to close.
"It's a travesty. It's a waste of resources . . ." said county administrator Randy Arno. Floyd's landfill had enough space to take trash for one or two more years and county officials talked about getting a state extension.
But, because of constantly shifting directives from state and federal agencies, they decided the risk was not worth it, Arno said.
For the next two years, Floyd County will pay $37.37 per ton to ship its garbage to a Waste Management, Inc. facility near Winston-Salem, N.C. The arrangement will double the county's expenditure to get rid of its garbage, to about $600,000 a year.
County residents will likely start paying their first-ever garbage disposal fees next year, Arno said.
Bedford County locked the gate on its filled-to-capacity landfill Friday, on deadline. But it doesn't have a permanent place to drop its trash. A new 212-acre landfill is finished, but lacks a permit.
County Administrator William Rolfe arranged to use the city's landfill until he can get a permit from the Department of Environmental Quality. Frustrated with their delays, he said he plans to travel to Richmond next week to demand answers.
The New River Resource Authority, which handles trash for Radford, Pulaski and Pulaski County, took the second choice. Anticipating today's crunch months ago, the authority upgraded its dump to the tune of $1.7 million.
That should last another 4 1/2 years, program manager Fred Hilliard said, in time for a new dump that meets all environmental regulations.
Franklin County, however, is opting for an extension. Assistant county administrator David Laurrell said the landfill is good for another six to 10 years. A long-range plan for dumping garbage includes the possibility of a new county landfill, he said.
About 40 other localities in Virginia are seeking similar extensions which are allowed under an amendment passed by the General Assembly last year, said Stuart Ridout, spokesman for the Department of Environmental Quality.
Ridout said although the deadline has been known for some time, the crossover between federal and state mandates and timelines has been, to say the least, confusing.
"These laws are as thick as a New York phone book," Ridout said.
Amendments to the regulations were arriving as late as last week, putting the squeeze on baffled local officials and engineers.
"Tearing our hair out, is what we've been doing," said Jeff Crate, director of solid waste programs for Draper Aden Associates in Blacksburg. The consulting firm has been busy the past week working the phones and fax machines, trying to alleviate its clients' solid waste woes.
But engineers have their own concerns. The legislation has, in effect, turned them into fortune tellers.
To qualify for an extension on today's deadline, localities must have a professional engineer's certification ensuring that the landfill can continue to take trash without causing environmental damage.
But most county dumps were built years ago, when landfills were basically holes in the ground.
Nowadays, stringent regulations require protective liners, ground water monitoring wells, and elaborate systms to catch leachate - runoff that filters through garbage picking up harmful compounds.
Chambers Development Corp. is one solid waste company whose business has run off the charts because of today's deadline.
"We are increasing in tonnage because of it - happily," said Judy Napier, a company executive. The company built massive dumps in Amelia and Charles City counties as a commercial venture, banking on volume to cut overhead. Each one can handle up to 5,000 tons of trash a day.
Chambers has signed half a dozen new contracts in the past couple of months because of the deadline, Napier said, and she expects the next months will bring in even more.
New contracts, which average about $32 a ton, include Salem and Craig, Bath, Buckingham, Cumberland, Charlotte and Brunswick counties.
By comparison, counties opting to dump in their own backyard have seen a sharp rise in operating costs. Hilliard, with the New River Resource Authority, said costs have gone from $20 per ton to $57.50 - in four years.
Other Western Virginia localities are likewise getting out of the dump business.
Smyth and Patrick counties are following Floyd County's example and taking their trash to North Carolina.
Washington, Buchanan, Tazewell and Russell counties are heading to Tennessee.
by CNB