BILL BACKS CONTROLS ON WASTE

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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 22, 1992                   TAG: 9201220378
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BY MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
BILL BACKS CONTROLS ON WASTE
A pair of legislators, prompted by a county cement company's intention to burn hazardous waste in Botetourt County, have drafted a law that could help Virginia communities block - or at least control - big-money waste industries.
Republican Sen. Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, whose district includes his home county of Botetourt, introduced the bill several days ago, with House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell, a Vinton Democrat represents southern Botetourt County, as co-patron.
Under the legislation, counties, cities and towns could regulate both the siting of solid-waste management facilities and the burning of hazardous waste in kilns, boilers or industrial furnaces.
Grass-roots groups opposing private landfills, incinerators and other waste projects around the state have been frustrated for years by conflicting legal views on local governments' authority over such projects.
Last fall, a group called Valley Concerned Citizens: Haz Mat Alert was organized in Botetourt to try to stop Tarmac/Roanoke Cement Company's plans to burn hazardous material as a fuel at its Botetourt plant.
Tarmac wants to make money taking hazardous waste from in and outside Virginia and use the waste to replace up to a fourth of the coal it now buys for fuel. The company, Virginia's only maker of dry cement and the country's 15th-biggest cement maker, already is burning tires as a fuel.
On Tuesday, Botetourt supervisors endorsed the Trumbo-Cranwell bill without dissent. "This bill would take away all doubt that we do have enabling legislation," said Supervisor Robert Layman, who represents the part of the county where Tarmac is located.
County Attorney Buck Heartwell told the Board of Supervisors he thinks existing statutes already empower the county to regulate waste-burning at Tarmac. He said he has been waiting for Virginia Attorney General Mary Sue Terry's opinion on that. It was promised two weeks ago, he said, but it has not been received.
John Yates of Valley Concerned Citizens told the board his group is worried that Tarmac will get the go-ahead from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency "any day now" and begin test burns of hazardous waste.
Rather than depend on new legislation that could fail in the General Assembly or take a long time to go into effect, Yates asked supervisors Tuesday for a written opinion within two weeks on whether they could use existing legislation to control Tarmac's waste plans.
John DeLong, a Tarmac engineer, attended the meeting but had no comment during the session.
Afterward, he said, "It just establishes another level of regulation," in addition to state and federal reviews of Tarmac's plans. "The end result is more government, higher costs."
DeLong said no hazardous waste will be burned any time soon. "It'll probably be a year or a year and a half, at the very least," he said.
At Tuesday's meeting, Valley Concerned Citizens gave supervisors and county administrators thick booklets the organization compiled on Virginia laws on waste operations and information on other Virginia communities' legal struggles to control them. Also among the materials was a 1988 report showing that Tarmac is in an area with a high potential for ground water pollution.
The group also gave county officials a videotape of documentaries on hazardous-waste sites around the United States and health problems in those communities.
Tarmac's application to the EPA for permission to burn hazardous waste says it could receive any of 105 different hazardous materials, including solvents, contaminated oil and some heavy metals and carcinogens.
Company officials have said the waste will be closely monitored for content and its burning will be controlled by state-of-the-art equipment. They say most of the waste would come by railroad on a nine-mile spur that runs to the plant. Some waste would be delivered by truck.
This week, Valley Concerned Citizens sent the EPA and the Virginia attorney general's office petitions signed by 2,275 people against Tarmac's hazardous-waste project.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB by Archana Subramaniam by CNB