TERRY: BOTETOURT CAN'T CONTROL WASTE BURNING

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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 29, 1992                   TAG: 9201290254
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
TERRY: BOTETOURT CAN'T CONTROL WASTE BURNING
The Botetourt County Board of Supervisors lacks legal authority to regulate hazardous waste burning at Tarmac's cement plant, Virginia Attorney General Mary Sue Terry has determined.
Some county leaders thought a state law giving local governments power on the siting of "solid waste management facilities" would cover Tarmac's proposed burning of hazardous waste as a fuel.
Terry doesn't think so.
But her opinion, released Tuesday morning, didn't dampen the hopes of waste-burning opponents in county government.
Robert Layman, the supervisor representing Tarmac's area in southwestern Botetourt, said he's counting all the more on passage of a General Assembly bill that would specifically empower local governments to control hazardous-waste burning.
"We're going to hope like hell that Bo gets that bill through, him and Dickie," Layman said Tuesday. The bill's chief patrons are Sen. Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, R-Fincastle, and Del. Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton.
Botetourt County Administrator John Williamson and members of Valley Concerned Citizens, an organization created to fight Tarmac's waste-burning, went to Richmond on Tuesday to cheer the bill when Trumbo described it to a legislative committee. County supervisors backed the bill in a vote last week.
Layman hopes the "Bo Bill," as it's called in Botetourt, will be passed as emergency legislation, so supervisors can take action on Tarmac's plans before most bills go into effect in the summer.
Until there's a solid state law, Layman said, other ideas are being bandied about for how the supervisors can exercise some authority over the Tarmac project.
He said lawyers have told him that the county's zoning and police powers could be used to control Tarmac. But, he said, "Opinions are like noses; everybody's got one."
He's reluctant to take a vote based on weak legal authority that doesn't stop Tarmac. "I don't want to pass something that's halfway," he said, "and then it winds up in court for years and years."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB