Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 5, 1994 TAG: 9410050119
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CLIFTON FORGE LENGTH: Medium
About a dozen residents turned out at a public hearing Tuesday to demand that the state clean up the notorious leaking landfill known as Kim-Stan.
They kept their statements short and, for the most part, unemotional. They've said it all before.
Almost to the person, these same people have led the seven-year battle to close the dump and, now, to clean it up.
"I am sick and tired of this issue," Alicia Gordon told a legislative subcommittee that met in this rural mountain community. "We have studied this problem to death. We know what the problem is; now fix it."
The subcommittee is looking for ways to pay for cleaning up abandoned or bankrupt landfills. There are an estimated 2,000 such dumps throughout the state, ranging from small, illegal tire dumps to hazardous-waste sites.
Kim-Stan tops the list.
The 24-acre dump between Clifton Forge and Covington was run by private operators who crammed thousands of tons of garbage in it for two years. Local residents forced the state to close it in 1989, but it continues to leak an average of 36,000 gallons of contaminated water every day.
A consultant hired by the state said it would cost $10 million to close Kim-Stan properly. For now, there is a layer of dirt over the dump holding the garbage in, but it doesn't hold the rain and moisture out.
"It looks good. It looks great," said Juan Ramirez, who retired to the community four years ago. "Until you start breathing the air and looking at the water."
He won't let his grandchildren go in the Jackson River, which receives water from a stream flowing from the dump.
Another speaker, Jesse Cottrell, said the state is coming up with money for Explore Park, for a pedestrian walkway from Hotel Roanoke - not to mention the $163 million that was earmarked for the now-defunct Disney theme park proposal in Haymarket.
"Where in all there can't you come up with money to fix this dump?" he asked.
And speaking of Disney, Gordon added that the entertainment giant's plan to build a theme park near the Manassas battlefield was nothing compared with having poisonous leachate oozing over the remains of Civil War soldiers.
Kim-Stan's leachate seeps into the ground at the historic Oakland Church, where veterans are buried, as are the grandparents of many in the community.
"Mickey Mouse is one thing, but leachate is quite another," Gordon said.
After the hour-long hearing, many residents said they thought nothing would get done, despite the efforts of Del. Creigh Deeds, D-Warm Springs, and Sen. Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, R-Fincastle, whom they credited for raising the issue among their colleagues in Richmond.
Deeds is chairman of the subcommittee, which includes Trumbo and three other legislators. Two of them were absent Tuesday.
Later in the day, the subcommittee and other officials drove to Kim-Stan, located along Virginia 696. They wandered around the church graveyard, ignoring the sign on the wrought iron fence that read: "Danger. Contaminated Area. Enter at Your Risk."
Not a rain cloud was in sight, and a soft breeze blew across the narrow valley. It wasn't the weather Deeds had hoped for to show state officials the conditions at Kim-Stan. On a damp, still day, the leachate trickles steadily from a culvert, and the rotten-egg smell of methane is unmistakable.
Deeds said that the state recently asked for bids for a $125,000 assessment of the worst abandoned landfills in Virginia and estimated cleanup costs.
The committee is charged with finding ways to pay for cleanups, including tipping fees - not a popular option in most places, Deeds said - the sale of bonds or other schemes.
He did not know whether the legislators would have any recommendations by January.
Memo: NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.