Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 11, 1991 TAG: 9104150184
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK LAYMAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
W.H.P.T. Inc. - which hauls stone, lime and fertilizer for Rockydale Quarries and other customers - has offered to haul the garbage by truck for $10 per ton.
And if Roanoke County doesn't want to pay up front to build an access road across Fort Lewis Mountain to the landfill, the trucking company has offered to build it itself and haul the garbage for $22 a ton.
It has been estimated that it will cost $35 per ton to build and operate the new landfill. A consultant has said that building a transfer station and hauling the garbage by train will cost $20 per ton, for a total cost of $55 per ton.
W.H.P.T.'s proposal would solve one problem: the opposition of Ironto residents who do not want the trash train running through their community.
Because of steep terrain, plans call for the train to run along a Norfolk Southern Corp. main line to Ironto in eastern Montgomery County, then double back up Fort Lewis Mountain. The 6-mile rail spur from Ironto to the landfill would roughly parallel Virginia 629 and Virginia 622.
People who live near the proposed rail spur are worried about its impact on their property values and the possibility of accidents and environmental damage.
"It seems to me we should at least listen to [W.H.P.T.] and give them some consideration," Roanoke County Supervisor Dick Robers said Wednesday.
Chairman Steve McGraw was less enthusiastic. "We're going to review it, but it just doesn't sound good."
Roanoke lawyer W.F. Mason Jr. gave details of W.H.P.T.'s proposal to the board on Tuesday. The supervisors were meeting as the Roanoke County Resource Authority.
Mason made the proposal to the county in a letter dated Feb. 1, but this was the first the supervisors had heard of it.
"I was a little bit surprised," Supervisor Lee Eddy said. "It seems to be a little late in the game for someone to come along with this kind of proposal."
Mason said W.H.P.T. would agree to a 25-year contract to haul garbage from the transfer station in Roanoke to the landfill in west Roanoke County for $10 per ton. The rate might increase each year to cover increases in the cost of fuel, insurance and capital expenses.
For an additional $12 per ton, W.H.P.T. would build and maintain the access road.
Building the road would not be as tricky as it has been made to seem, Mason said. It would be similar to access roads to coal mines in mountainous Southwest Virginia, he said. "That's done all the time. We think it's very feasible. It's [W.H.P.T.'s] business. They really know how to do this."
There would be advantages to hauling the 700 tons of garbage to the landfill each day by truck rather than by rail, Mason said.
For one thing, garbage would not pile up at the transfer station all day before being hauled to the landfill. W.H.P.T.'s trucks would make 45 to 50 trips each day from the transfer station to the landfill. The train would make only one trip per day.
Staggered arrival of trucks at the landfill would allow garbage to be buried more efficiently, he said. And different types of garbage, such as construction debris, could be more easily segregated.
Advocates of the trash train, however, say it is more aesthetic and publicly acceptable to haul garbage by rail, and would mean fewer trucks on roads near the landfill and transfer station.
Industries with rail sidings also could ship their garbage directly to the landfill.
It also would reduce costs at the landfill, they say, because only one shift of workers would be needed to unload the train each morning and bury the garbage. It would take two shifts of workers to unload garbage trucks that would arrive throughout the day.
The supervisors asked County Administrator Elmer Hodge and his staff to study W.H.P.T.'s proposal and report to them April 23.
\ NOTE: Slightly different version of this story ran in the Current section in the New River Edition.
***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on April 13, 1991.
Clarification
The Roanoke County Board of Supervisors will not discuss a trucking company's proposal to haul garbage to the new landfill at Smith Gap until it meets again as the Roanoke County Resource Authority. The board's clerk says the resource authority is not scheduled to meet again until the second or fourth Tuesday in June.
The trucking company has proposed that its trucks haul trash instead of a proposed "trash train" that would run through the Ironto area of Montgomery County.
Story ran in Metro and NRV editions.
Memo: CORRECTION