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

DATE: TUESDAY, July 31, 1990                   TAG: 9007310283
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: BEDFORD
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

FLUFF DUMP FOUGHT

But the LUGS terminology doesn't tell the whole story.

In best-attended public hearing since LUGS was enacted last October, 300 rowdy residents from the area near Virginia 745 and Virginia 746 Monday night pleaded with county officials not to allow the dump in their neighborhood.

"Please, please, please, no fluff dumps," said Bob Johnson. Johnson's religion and nature park sits along the same road as the site Shredded Products Corp. wants to build a dump.

"Five hundred thousand people have come to Holy Land since it started," Johnson told the county supervisors. "If these 500,000 were here tonight, you know how they would vote."

To that, the crowd of residents exploded into applause.

Fourteen residents who spoke during the public hearing cited fears about the effect a landfill of non-metal car parts would have on noise, traffic, smells, land values, the environment, fire safety and the view in their area.

John Buck showed officials photographs of a truck that lost part of its load of the so-called fluff as it traveled through Bedford on U.S. 460 last week. On "narrow, hilly, twisting" Virginia 745 complete with blind hills and curves, a lost bale of fluff could be life-threatening, he said.

An official from Shredded Products, in turn, gave the county officials assurances about the safety standards of modern landfills and the economic need for the dump.

The Montvale car-shredding company, a subsidiary of Roanoke Electric Steel, had baled and stockpiled its non-metal car parts - or "fluff" - until a fire broke out there last fall.

During the month-long fire, state officials told Shredded Products that it had to get rid of its waste somewhere else. But carting truckloads of fluff to other areas for disposal has proved to be too expensive for the company.

Under Bedford County's unusual zoning ordinance, approval or denial of a project is supposed to be based on its score from the county planning staff and its neighbors' reactions. The proposed landfill scored 76 points out of 200.

The Planning Commission will make its recommendation on the project Aug. 7. The supervisors will make a final decision Aug. 13.