Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 13, 1991 TAG: 9102130241
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MARGARET CAMLIN CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Nine months have passed since the state forced Kim-Stan to close because of toxic runoff leaking toward the Jackson River. But the oily, black leachate is still flowing out of the dump and the problem is worse than ever, according to County Administrator Macon Sammons.
"We feel this is intolerable. . . . [W]e can simply see no reasonable excuse for nine months of inaction on leachate treatment and approximately four months of inaction on remedial work to the erosion-control measures," Sammons wrote in a letter Friday to Cynthia Bailey, director of the state Department of Waste Management.
"The state is now allowing worse leachate conditions to exist on the Kim-Stan site than existed during the period when the state was pushing for enforcement action," he wrote.
Sammons met Monday with Bailey, but "did not get any encouragement from them about what's going to happen next," according to County Attorney Wayne Heslep. Sammons still was in Richmond on Tuesday and could not be reached for comment.
Still unknown is "what's going to happen, when, and where the money's going to come from," Heslep said.
None of the $300,000 set aside by Gov. Douglas Wilder for cleaning up the Kim-Stan mess has been spent.
Bailey said she first is seeking an order from U.S. Bankruptcy Court that would allow her department to do the cleanup and "put us in a position to better recover our costs."
Bankruptcy trustee John Leake said he believes Bailey's office wants assurance that it will be first in line to receive any money the court gets from Kim-Stan. "I have no qualms about them going in and doing the work whatsoever," Leake said Tuesday.
The aim of bankruptcy proceedings is to liquidate any assets of Kim-Stan and recover the money for creditors. The private landfill was forced into bankruptcy in September by three companies claiming $745,000 in unpaid debts.
Bailey said she hopes to soon put the next phase of the cleanup out to bid. This includes plans to plant more vegetation over the landfill and put a cap on it, and to start work on a sediment and erosion-control plan already developed by Draper Aden Associates, a Blacksburg engineering firm. All this work would have to be done before tackling the leachate problem, she said.
The cleanup would cost between $1 million and $2 million, Bailey said, adding that her department does not have that kind of money.
Bailey, too, is hoping that Kim-Stan's owners will be forced to pay for the damages. "Obviously, no one wants to absolve Kim-Stan or anybody involved with Kim-Stan from responsibility," she said.
The county repeatedly has asked Bailey for a plan of action and schedule for cleaning up the dump, which is in the community of Selma, just outside Clifton Forge.
Public Works Director Noel Beach visited the dump about two weeks ago and found "strong, putrid smell and black, oily leachate flows estimated at 5 to 6 gallons per minute," Sammons told Bailey in his letter.
Beach said the toxic runoff is flowing out of the ground beneath Virginia 696 on land belonging to CSX Railroad.
"Hopefully somebody's going to do something soon," said Aggie Vint, one of the citizens who has fought the landfill from the beginning. "Even now in real cold weather, you can't come down the road with your car windows up because it's so bad."
State law not does clearly state whose responsibility it is to pay for such landfill messes as Kim-Stan, Heslep acknowledged. But he and county officials believe the state Department of Waste Management should take responsibility because it issued the permit to Kim-Stan's original owners.
Also, the state "should have acted sooner and more decisively to close it down a year or two before they did," Heslep said.
An Alleghany County judge imposed a $1.5 million fine against Kim-Stan in September. None of that money has been recovered.
Meanwhile, the state attorney general's office is continuing to investigate the activities of Kim-Stan President Jerry Wharton and Vice President Bill Stover.
Office spokesman Bert Rohrer said he could not discuss the case because it is in court.
"What we've been trying to do . . . is endeavor to try to get for Waste Management and for the state the recovery of some of the costs for correcting and alleviating the problems at the landfill," Rohrer said.
by CNB