Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 15, 1994 TAG: 9405150061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
He didn't get misty-eyed because the old landfill in southeast Roanoke County was closing for good, after 20 years of service.
He didn't feel special about being the last person to haul a load of trash to the dump, to be a turning point, so to speak, in the move to the new, state-of-the-art landfill at Smith Gap designed to protect the environment for the health and well-being of future generations.
He just wanted his Chevy pickup to come back to life.
"If this truck had any common sense, it would start up so I can get the hell out of here," Kessler said, kicking the dusty red dirt. He jiggled the battery cable again and turned the key. Nothing.
It was 4 p.m., half an hour after the landfill officially closed for good. A cloud of dust blew over the hill and some scrappy looking blackbirds picked over the last bits of trash while a bulldozer chugged up and down the slope.
Dewey Gillenwater, who has worked the compactor at the landfill for 11 years, tried to help get the Chevy going.
As soon as Kessler got his truck out of there, Gillenwater could roll over the last loads of brush, shingles and wood and call it a day.
He won't miss the old dump a bit. In fact, he's looking forward to running a front-loader at the new transfer station, pushing piles of garbage into rail cars of the much ballyhooed "trash train," which will carry the valley's garbage to its final resting place at the new landfill at Smith Gap.
"Yeah, it won't be as dusty," Gillenwater said.
His only emotional tie to the old dump, it seems, is that he was the first one to bury the first load of baled garbage about 10 years ago, a fact he proudly relates.
All the equipment, except the bulldozer and compactor, had been moved to the new facilities by Saturday afternoon, said John Hubbard, director of the Roanoke Valley Regional Authority.
The authority sent notices to its regular customers, posted orange signs along Rutrough Road leading to the old dump, and put ads in the newspaper that the dump, after months of false starts and delays, was finally closing.
Hubbard said he received a fax Friday afternoon giving him final approval from the Department of Environmental Quality to open the new landfill.
"We're glad to close it out, and I think the neighborhood is glad to see us close it up," Hubbard said. "They've put up with it for 20 years."
The authority plans to cover 65 acres of the dump with three feet of soil and reseed it with grass and wildflowers as part of a demonstration project with Explore Park, which is adjacent to the landfill, and Virginia Tech.
For Leon Dent and Dan Spangler, their last trip to the landfill Saturday was also their first.
"They said something about it [at the gate], but I don't know," Dent said. "I figured a dump spot would look a lot worse."
Jerry Young has been coming to the landfill off and on for five years. "It's gonna be weird, not coming up here anymore," he said as he raked out brush and trash collected from his yard after this winter's ice storms. His wife, who wouldn't reveal her full name, said they told the woman at the gate they were from Roanoke County, and the woman waved them through without payment.
"She said the county would get it," Young's wife said. "I'm sure we'll get charged for it one way or another."
From now on, people should take their trash to the transfer station at 1020 Hollins Road, which will open Monday morning, Hubbard said. Fees will be $65 per ton.
The trash train is scheduled to run its first load that night to the landfill at Smith Gap.
Hubbard said a security guard will be posted at the old dump for a couple of weeks to direct would-be trash dumpers to the transfer station. The new location will be easier to reach, said Kessler, who had negotiated the curves and hills of Rutrough Road seven times Saturday.
Although he generally prefers working outdoors to inside, he said it's all the same when it comes to tipping a load: "Go in and dump and get outta there."
At 4:15, Kessler was still at the old dump with a dead battery. It had crossed his mind to leave the truck there. Maybe it was time the old Chevy joined all the other junkers in that big garage in the sky. It was certainly the right place and the right time to break down.
by CNB