
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 13, 1990                   TAG: 9006130490
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

LANDFILL

NOT in my back yard. That's how everyone feels about landfills. Bedford County supervisors recently had to grapple with that painful political fact, and their political solution appears less than ideal.

The Board of Supervisors chose a landfill site that was the No. 2 choice of a consulting engineer and a citizens' committee. Not only did the supervisors ignore the recommendation that resulted from a costly and time-consuming process. They chose the more costly and less timely solution.

Technical experts determined that both sites would be good choices for a landfill. But the 545-acre Staunton River site, recommended by the engineer and citizen advisers, would last for 40 to 50 years and cost $22.5 million to develop. The 363-acre site chosen by the supervisors will last 30 to 35 years and cost $24.4 million to develop.

How do the supervisors defend spending $1.9 million more for a landfill that will last five to 20 years less? They say the Staunton River site would have required extensive drainage controls and road improvements, and it lacks trees to screen it from public view.

But the consulting engineer, who was paid about $50,000 for technical advice, weighed all of those factors in his recommendation. The chosen site has problems of its own, including two creek tributaries running through it. The state could have helped with the needed road improvements.

The supervisors apparently paid more attention to residents' complaints than cost considerations. Residents living near the Staunton River site squawked in greater volume than residents near the other site. That's politics. And that's the way landfill sites are chosen.

by CNB