Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 19, 1992 TAG: 9202190151
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE
DATELINE: FAIRLAWN LENGTH: Medium
INCINERATOR MEETING MOVED SO MEDIA CAN GO
New River Valley officials will meet Friday with Army officials and Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, about the Radford arsenal's idea for a trash incinerator to serve the it and valley localities.The meeting had been scheduled for the Radford Army Ammunition Plant, but Army policy would have closed the door on news reporters.
Arsenal spokeswoman Nicole Kinser said that the Department of Defense has several directives that prohibit the media from accompanying politicians onto military compounds during election years.
Boucher, of course, is a politician.
Boucher aide Kevin Burke said Tuesday that he tried to get an exemption from the Pentagon because Boucher has not announced whether he will seek re-election to a sixth term this year.
That failed, so Boucher will move the meeting off Army property. Burke said an alternate site had not been decided.
Burke said he tried "going to the next level up" to open Boucher's meeting with Army and valley officials.
"It's a mix-up; we're trying to straighten it out," Burke said before his efforts failed. "I think they're just trying to be overly cautious."
Kinser said the policy applies to all politicians during election years, whether they are running for office. "In all cases," Kinser read from one manual, "commanders will inform candidates that while on a military installation, all political activities and media events are prohibited, to include on-post media coverage of the candidate's visit."
Bob Whistine, Army spokesman at the arsenal headquarters in Rock Island, Ill., said the policy has been around for as long as he's been with the Army - 18 years - and applies to almost all Department of Defense installations.
If one politician gets media coverage, ". . . then the opposition would want to come on and it just begins to snowball," he said.
The Radford arsenal's incinerator proposal would call for burning the plant's scrap propellant and items contaminated with propellant - all classified as hazardous waste - along with garbage from New River Valley communities.
Boucher said recently that there are legal barriers to civilian trash being handled on government property, but Congress could probably dismantle those.
The real problem is the cost, he said. Construction of the incinerator is estimated at $70 million, with the Army paying 30 percent. The localities would pay the rest and be paid back through tipping fees.
"Now, my question is going to be whether the local governments can afford what may amount to a $60-per-ton tipping fee in order to finance their share of the construction and operation of the incinerator," Boucher said.