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

DATE: THURSDAY, July 12, 1990                   TAG: 9007120091
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

KIM-STAN TURNS AWAY CREDITORS

It isn't Kim-Stan that owes $746,000 to three companies that did work at the Alleghany County landfill.

Instead, it's Vertay Industries, Kim-Stan's marketing partner from Michigan, that creditors ought to be pursuing, Kim-Stan's attorney said in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Roanoke Wednesday.

"Kim-Stan has never received a bill," insisted Joe Roberts.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Ross Krumm set a Sept. 19 trial to hear landfill creditors' pleas that Kim-Stan be forced into bankruptcy proceedings to track the money made at the private Alleghany County landfill.

"What happened to the millions of dollars they took in from the truckers?" asked Bill Terry, attorney for one of the creditors, Environmental Chemical Associates of Farmingdale, N.J.

The dump near Clifton Forge took thousands of truckloads of Northeastern garbage until the state shut it down two months ago, claiming massive violations of environmental laws.

ChemServ Environmental Co. of Columbus, Ohio, claims debts of $500,869. Environmental Chemical says it's owed $232,671. Each company hauled polluted waters from the dump near Clifton Forge. Gundle Lining Construction Corp. of Houston is seeking payment of a $12,801 bill.

A clerk at the Michigan Department of Commerce said this week that Vertay Industries and two other Vertay companies have been dissolved as Michigan corporations because they failed to file annual reports for the last two years.

Mark Gates, operator of a Georgia landfill who earlier worked for Vertay and then for Kim-Stan, said the Vertay companies, based in Troy, Mich., were coal and steel brokers and built subdivisions near Detroit.

He still has mail for Vertay and for William E. Stover, one of its executives, but Gates said, "I don't even know where to send it."

Roberts and Kim-Stan part-owner Jerry Wharton of Wise County said in an interview last week that Stover handled Kim-Stan's dumping fees and finances. They said his Troy, Mich., office closed in March and they have not been able to find him since then.

Wharton said Kim-Stan is left with about $1.5 million in debts.

by CNB