Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 1, 1990 TAG: 9006010424
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: COVINGTON LENGTH: Medium
General District Court Judge Kenneth C. King Jr. ruled that the private dump, closed by the state three weeks ago, illegally operated a leachate pumping station on leased land nearby.
The judge fined the troubled dump the maximum fine - $1,000 a day for the 86 consecutive days the pump was in operation, Jan. 2 to March 28. The minimum fine would have been $10 a day.
Kim-Stan lawyer Joe H. Roberts said he would appeal the decision but had no other comment.
The county brought civil action in March and then the criminal charges after Kim-Stan ignored the county's warnings and set up the pumping station across Virginia 696 without county permission.
In the civil case, a circuit judge ruled in March that Kim-Stan had to remove the pump from property it leased from the CSX Corp.
Noel Beach, the county's public works director and zoning administrator, testified Thursday that to run the pump legally, Kim-Stan needed a zoning change and a conditional use permit. He said Kim-Stan never asked for the changes.
At the urging of the state attorney general's office, the state Department of Waste Management and the state Water Control Board, a circuit judge here closed the dump May 10 until it can comply with environmental laws. Managers cleared their office in a trailer last Friday.
The pumping station was designed to catch waters that ran from the dump and under the highway and to ship it back to a holding pond within the landfill.
The county wrote Kim-Stan three times that its activity on the CSX property constituted an unapproved expansion of the landfill operation, Beach testified.
Roberts told the judge Kim-Stan thought it unnecessary to go through the zoning process because it had a "vested right" to handle waste water streaming from the dump.
Kim-Stan argued for months that the county was wrongheaded to shut down an effort to stop leakage from the site. County officials answered that the pumping station was blatantly illegal and could not control pollution from the 48-acre dump, anyway.
County attorneys said Kim-Stan's refusal to heed the county's warnings was another example of the company's recklessness.
"The county said `You can't do this' and Kim-Stan said `We're going to do it anyway,' " said Gordon Saunders, one of attorneys for the county.
Roberts accused chief county attorney Wayne Heslep of having a "vendetta" against Kim-Stan.
The landfill's attorney presented no witnesses Thursday.
After the hearing, Heslep said state officials may have to build a special system on the dump to treat its leachate, the toxic waters that percolate from landfills. Kim-Stan's fines will cover just a fraction of the cleanup, he said.
He is counting on state officials to do whatever is necessary to get money from Kim-Stan and its owners. A cleanup and soil cap for the dump are expected to cost at least $2 million.
Heslep believes owners made millions taking garbage from Northeastern cities for 18 months. "Note that they never say `We don't have the money,' " he said. "They say `Kim-Stan doesn't have the money.' "
by CNB