Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 26, 1993 TAG: 9301260298
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Medium
SLAG RECYCLER GIVES UP ON BEDFORD
Faced with what he called a prohibitive set of operating conditions, and angry with the Board of Supervisors, Dan Mosse withdrew his request Monday night to recycle foundry slag in Bedford County.He said he has approval to relocate the business elsewhere, but wouldn't specify where exactly, other than that it will stay in the Roanoke-Lynchburg region.
Mosse was upset with what he called a "non-approval approval" from the board to his request to separate foundry slag into usable metal, sand and stone. Slag is a waste product of metal casting that normally is dumped into public landfills.
Had he not dropped his request, the board was likely to approve the recycling business, but with more than a dozen conditions - some of them extremely costly.
These included putting up a fence around the 6-acre site, off Baldwin Street just over the Bedford County line from the city of Bedford. Also, he would have been required to plant a buffer zone of 10-foot pine trees around the land.
In addition, he would have had to install a sprinkler system to control dust from the recycling operation. Mosse planned to break apart the slag by dropping a heavy weight on the material from a crane.
He would have had to install a retention pond for water runoff and post a bond to pay for potential cleanup costs should the site ever become polluted.
Total price tag, Mosse estimated: more than $200,000.
"That's why I say it's a non-approval approval," he said.
Mosse charged that the board never wanted him to operate in the county, afraid that the recycling business could be an environmental liability. Mosse's process has never been tried in Virginia.
But he said the board was equally afraid to flat-out reject his request for fear that he would sue the county. So, instead, he said, the board blocked it by imposing such prohibitive restrictions.
"They don't want another J.C. Sales," he said, referring to a truck sales and parts business in Montvale whose request to expand was denied by the board. J.C. Sales, which met most of the criteria for approval, has filed a lawsuit challenging the decision.
Mosse was given 90 days by the board to clean up his property, and he will be allowed to break apart the approximately 300 tons of slag stored on the site. The surplus remains from last year when Mosse was operating the recycling on essentially the same site, just across the county line in Bedford.
His permit there, however, was revoked over a dispute about the scope of his operation and his failure to submit proper site plans.
Mosse's undisclosed new location is five times larger, he said, and already has a building he will need for future growth.