Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 13, 1990 TAG: 9007130167
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: BEDFORD/FRANKLIN
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE Staff Writer
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Medium
State officials are blocking the county's plan to move its public landfill a few hundred yards to a portion of the county's 400-acre recreation park.
Although the area identified as a possible landfill site is isolated from recreation facilities, the state Department of Conservation and Recreation has said the county may not bury trash anywhere on the property.
Art Buehler, director of the Division of Planning and Recreation Resources, said Thursday that the entire park is dedicated for recreational purposes because Franklin County accepted a $179,445 federal recreation grant in 1975.
"If any federal funds are used to develop property, then the governing body agrees to keep that land as a recreation area in perpetuity," Buehler said.
The Franklin Board of Supervisors is expected to fight the state's ruling. The issue is on the board's agenda at its regular meeting scheduled for Monday.
This is the second time in three months that a state agency has altered Franklin County's attempts to comply with new landfill regulations, which take effect in 1992.
In April, the state Department of Waste Management vetoed the county's plans to extend the life of its existing landfill on U.S. 220 by placing protective liners over areas where trash was buried in the 1970s. State engineers said the liners could be damaged as the trash below settled.
The decision placed Franklin County under a July 1992 deadline to find a new landfill site.
The most economical - and politically expedient - solution appeared to be moving across a hollow separating the landfill from the county's recreation park. County officials said the move would not disrupt activities at the park.
But engineering tests on the site have been put on hold by the Department of Conservation and Recreation.
Buehler said state records showed that Franklin County received a federal grant to help build facilities at the recreation park, off Virginia 619 south of Rocky Mount.
In return, Franklin County officials agreed to maintain the 435 acres for recreational purposes and to close the landfill which had recently opened on part of the site, Buehler said. But Franklin County has kept the landfill open and now wants to use more land on the site.
One way around the impasse, Buehler said, would be for Franklin County to petition the state and National Park Service for a "conversion of use" of the land.
That could be an expensive proposition. The Board of Supervisors would have to abandon all or part of the recreation park and replace it with land of equal recreational and monetary value, Buehler said.
Board Chairman Wayne Angell said the county may have no money left for a new recreation park after complying with costly landfill regulations.
Angell added that it would be easier for the county to find neighbors willing to live next door to a park than it would be find people who would want to co-exist with a landfill.
by CNB