Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 9, 1994 TAG: 9412100062
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The Montgomery Regional Solid Waste Authority will be responsible for disposing of the garbage gathered from Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Tech and Montgomery County beginning in July.
It will take over control of Montgomery's Mid-County Landfill and will dictate dumping fees. About 20 county employees will move over to work for the solid waste authority, which also will assume responsibility for building a major new recycling center designed to serve the region.
The two town councils, the county Board of Supervisors and a representative of the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors all approved the new authority in a brief meeting Thursday. Four Blacksburg council members and all but one member of Christiansburg's council were present and approved the deal. The supervisors voted 6-1. The lone "no" came from Supervisor Joe Stewart of Elliston.
"I'm not going to vote for anything when I have only one vote in five," Stewart said. "I really think we can take care of our own trash better than anyone else can."
Other officials were more optimistic about the new authority, which will be governed by a five-member board. The towns, county and Tech each have one representative; their members will appoint a fifth, at-large member. All will serve abbreviated terms ending in 1998.
Once the authority gets up and running, it will seek to join the already existing New River Resource Authority, which operates a landfill in Radford and has plans to build a new one later this decade in Pulaski County. That county, Radford and the towns of Dublin and Pulaski make up the New River Resource Authority.
If the merger succeeds, it would mean the new landfill would involve every major New River Valley government except Floyd and Giles counties. One word of state law will have to be changed to allow the Montgomery authority to join the New River authority. Montgomery and Daniel Siegel, a Richmond lawyer who helped negotiate the agreement creating the new authority, are going to seek the change in the upcoming session of the General Assembly.
"This is another step in improved intergovernmental relations," said Montgomery Supervisor Joe Gorman.
Gorman will represent the county on the new Montgomery Solid Waste Authority. The other members are: Adele Schirmer, a Blacksburg official; John Lemley, Christiansburg's town manager; Spencer Hall of Virginia Tech; and at-large member L. Allen Bowman, president of Litton Industries Inc., Poly-Scientific Division of Blacksburg.
by CNB