Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 22, 1992 TAG: 9201230007
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: M.J. DOUGHERTY CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: FLOYD LENGTH: Medium
FLOYD GETS POLLUTION ADVICE
What can be done to prevent the chemical plants in Floyd County from becoming the next Kim-Stan? Or a nuclear waste dump?To get the answers to these questions, over 70 county residents filled the Community Room in the Bank of Floyd Tuesday night.
And what they heard was that to prevent ecological disasters, they would have to take matters into their own hands.
"They [the government workers] didn't want to do their job," said Donna Tucker, who lives less than a mile from Kim-Stan, the now-closed landfill in Alleghany County. "So we had to spend money we didn't have gathering information when it was their job to get that information."
Tucker and Alicia Gordon spoke to the crowd for over half an hour about their experiences and the tactics they used to fight Kim-Stan. Their recommendations included starting by being nice, then becoming "nasty," asking for written documentation to follow up every question, and being persistent.
"Donna developed a tactic while we were fighting this," said Gordon. "If she couldn't get someone to take her calls or couldn't get the answer she wanted, she would tell them she would drive to Richmond and sit on their doorstep until they paid attention to her. They took her calls."
Floyd County residents wanted to hear about this because of fears that have arisen since Quadrex Environmental Co., a Gainesville, Fla.-based company, bought the former B-REAL facility in the county industrial park.
The company has said it will recycle anti-freeze and oil filters at the facility. But it also deals in hazardous and radioactive waste at its Gainesville and Oak Ridge, Tenn., facilities.
That has many people leery. And they spoke out to cheers as the two-hour meeting neared its end.
"Floyd is on the list [for potential radioactive waste dump sites]," said B.J. Kennedy. "I've seen it with my own eyes. I don't believe in that type of power. I moved out here [from Tidewater] to get away from it. And now I feel like the devil himself is following me."
Tim Robinson, relating his experience from Long Island, N.Y., said, "If they come in here and build their facility, they will dump. And they might dump in the streams."
And finally, Sue Robertson suggest hazardous waste be dealt with by its producers. "It should stay on site," she said. "If they [corporations] get the profit from it, they should have to take care of the problems."