Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 11, 1991 TAG: 9104110512
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MARGARET CAMLIN CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: SELMA LENGTH: Medium
For the unaccustomed nose, anyway.
Charlie Williams, a state Transportation Department construction inspector, no longer notices the foul odor.
"I block it out mentally," Williams said, standing near the bulldozers, dump trucks and other equipment the state is using to start the cleanup.
On dry days, eight to 10 department workers arrive each morning to pack clay and dirt over parts of the landfill. They are hauling nearly 10,000 cubic yards of it from a mile away.
The dirt cover, to be seeded with grass, is supposed to insulate the rotting garbage from rain and thereby slow the flow of toxic waters from the site toward the Jackson River.
Workers will be excavating and installing three pipelines to direct storm water into a sediment pond. And they've dug six channels to speed storm water off the site before it seeps into the trash.
This first phase of the cleanup will take another eight to 10 weeks, according to contract administrator Terry Clark. "So far we're proceeding extremely well," he said.
But local residents Donna Tucker and Alicia Gordon are not impressed. "My overall impression is they'll be using up the $300,000 we were allocated" before they can make a dent in shutting down the landfill, Tucker said.
Tucker and Gordon were preparing to accompany a crew from ABC News who made a stop at Kim-Stan on Wednesday for a national story about interstate garbage.
The state has allocated $300,000 for initial cleanup costs. Clark said that amount is sufficient for the first phase of the Transportation Department's work.
The entire cleanup is expected to cost $1 million to $2 million.
Local residents have complained for months about the stench, the leachate and the slowness of the state to clean up the mess. Kim-Stan President Jerry Wharton has said his company is too broke to do the job, but state police have been trying since last summer to track the profits made from handling the out-of-state garbage.
Just across the road from the landfill sits a ramshackle wood shelter, empty except for a dry liquor bottle and signs saying: "We taxpayers will not pay for Kim-Stan's clean-up mess. Make criminals, $Executives pay!!"
by CNB