DATE: Thursday, September 11, 1997          TAG: 9709110724

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MATT DOLAN, STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   57 lines

DEQ: ELBOW ROAD DUMP CAN'T GROW DURING INQUIRY

State environmental officials announced Wednesday that the city's investigation into possible zoning violations at a Greenbrier landfill has stopped all consideration of the landfill's state application to expand.

Francis L. Daniel, Tidewater regional director for the Department of Environmental Quality, told more than 60 residents of Elbow Road, Kemp Woods and the surrounding communities that Chesapeake city government's request for a delay had been upheld.

``We have to have local government approval . . . and the city of Chesapeake has not provided that for us,'' Daniel said, describing a ruling from the attorney general's office. ``That places the expansion application on hold until we get local approval.''

Dozens of residents, some who live as close as 900 feet from the proposed expansion, asked DEQ officials questions for more than 2 1/2 hours.

A primary concern: the possibility of groundwater contamination from the site. DEQ official Paul Farrell said the site had recently been placed in a second phase of groundwater testing after initial reports found ``indications of a possible contamination of the groundwater.''

The water, through testing wells on the landfill property, will be examined through next March for high levels of hazardous metals and organics, which officials did not identify.

Before this year, the landfill off Elbow Road had gone almost unnoticed for two decades, cloaked behind dense woods near new residential developments.

In 1979, the city issued a conditional-use permit for an 8.3-acre landfill on property owned by Daniel L. Thrasher called Elbow Road Farm Inc. Five years later, the city approved the landfill's expansion to almost 29 acres, though corresponding state approval had not been received.

All that changed last week when the DEQ received a letter from Deputy City Manager Clarence V. Cuffee rescinding the 1992 city approval, pending further investigation. Cuffee did not list specific violations, but said the landfill was not in compliance with local laws and was possibly violating zoning ordinances.

DEQ environmental engineer Milt Johnston said the site has several problems, including two unpermitted landfills of wood products on rented adjacent land owned by the Thrashers and improperly buried wood found in several booring sites around the landfill.

Warren Thrasher, son of the property owner, said Wednesday night that he had heard second-hand of the state's ruling. ``I hate to make an example of the city, but in their landfills, you're going to find wood products. . . . Things get mixed in.''

He said his family has invested more than 10 years to expand the concrete and construction debris landfill and ``a neighborhood popped in between then and now.''

Still residents voiced frustration at DEQ officials' lack of power regarding the Thrasher landfill, where there have been reported problems for more than a decade.

Residents talked of lobbying the City Council for relief.

``I know your hands are tied,'' Kemp Woods resident Cathy Haldas told state officials, ``but please remember the human lives at stake.''

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