Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 22, 1993 TAG: 9302220052
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOSEPH COCCARO LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
IS OUT-OF-STATE TRASH BIG BUCKS OR BIG PROBLEMS?
CASH-FOR-TRASH has become big business for some rural eastern Virginia counties. But some folks are worried about the long-term cost - to the environment
The one in Sussex County will be taller than Dominion Tower.
Gloucester County is considering one that could be the size of about 500 football fields.
Amelia County is about to open one that will receive upward of 10 million pounds a day.
We're talking trash.
Some of Virginia's poorest and most rural counties are selling to the highest bidder the one thing they have that others don't - space. Hoping to turn other states' problems into profits, they're allowing private waste haulers to build and operate massive landfills, packing them with millions of tons of sewage sludge, incinerator ash and household wastes imported from the Northeast.
The popularity of these trash-for-cash arrangements is fueling Virginia's new-found reputation as a major dumping ground. Only California and Missouri plow more waste into landfills per capita than Virginia, industry statistics show.
Opponents of landfills that are used by many states worry that central Virginia is mortgaging its future by creating a legacy that could prove costly in decades to come. Landfill proponents counter that theirs is a clean, safe industry that can bolster the tax base and living standards of poor communities.
Arguments from both sides have merit, says David S. Bailey, a Richmond-based attorney and scientist for the national Environmental Defense Fund. The real issue, he says, is one of propriety.
"The question is whether Virginia should be a land disposal for other people's garbage? Right now Virginia's policies and laws encourage communities to accept others' garbage."
Top of the heap
Virginia is one of only four states that import more than a million tons of solid waste a year. The others are Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana, solid waste industry figures show.
Privately run landfills proposed or operating in central Virginia are likely to bolster the state's ascent to king of the heap. At least a half-dozen such landfill operations plan to truck or bring in by railroad 2,000 to 5,000 tons of out-of-state waste daily. That would almost double the amount of waste now being imported into the commonwealth.
When filled, these trash mountains will span several hundred acres and grow to hundreds of feet. One example is the 250-acre landfill proposed in Sussex County. It's expected to peak at 400 feet. That's 75 feet higher than Roanoke's Dominion Tower.
Amelia County's landfill, slated to open this month, also will have considerable girth. It will span 404 acres and is licensed to receive up to 5,000 tons of waste a day. The operator is Chambers Waste Systems of Virginia, the same company that runs a 5,000 ton-a-day landfill in Charles City County, just 25 miles southeast of Richmond.
Other counties ready to open commercial landfills - or planning them - include Gloucester, King and Queen, King George and Caroline. Cumberland and Dinwiddie have given the waste-for-profits concept a look, and Buckingham is considering a waste incinerator.
The door is open for counties and private waste companies to strike trash-for-cash deals in Virginia. State laws don't limit the amount of waste that can be imported.
One executive with a national solid waste company operating in Virginia, who asked not to be named, said, "I'm amazed someone in this state hasn't gotten concerned."
`This is big business'
Most out-of-state waste comes from Washington, New York City, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, according to surveys done by the National Solid Waste Management Association, an industry trade group. Washington's trash goes to a site in Fairfax County.
Virginia's Department of Waste Management disputes figures portraying the state as being a huge waste importer. Yet, it has no statistical evidence of its own to rebuff such claims.
"Records on the amount of waste coming into or out of Virginia are not required to be kept," said state waste department spokesman Stuart Ridout.
Even if the state wanted to ban out-of-state waste, it probably couldn't. There have been several court rulings during the past few years, including one by the U.S. Supreme Court, deeming solid wastes as a commodity protected by the U.S. Constitution and federal interstate trade laws.
The court rulings have been a boon for companies like Browning Ferris, Waste Management and Chambers Development, which have expanded the business of transporting wastes. All three have opened commercial landfills around the country and all have operations in Virginia.
Virginia bans putting hazardous materials in landfills, but that's about it. Wastes prohibited in other states, such as ash from incinerated medical and industrial wastes, are welcomed here.
Two of the state's biggest customers are New York City and New Jersey, which export an estimated 85 percent of their waste. Landfill costs there are from one-third higher to double the $35-to-$45-a-ton disposal fees charged in Virginia.
"This is big business. People have to put their trash some place and small rural counties are the target," said the Rev. Ronald Sowers, a Sussex County minister who has fought an interstate commercial landfill proposed for his county.
Citizens' groups in Virginia say it's no coincidence that waste hauling and landfill companies are active politically in Richmond. Campaign finance records show that Waste Management, Chambers and Browning Ferris have contributed to 19 state senators and 45 state delegates. Many represent the rural counties that are host to commercial landfills, records show.
"Our political system is just about bought," said Leon Whitaker, co-chairman of a citizens' group fighting to keep commercial landfills out of rural Cumberland County. "These waste companies have some of the best politicians money can buy."
Environmental racism?
Landfill operators favor the region for several reasons. Virginia offers the first large rural expanse south of the populated Northeast corridor. It has lots of cheap land - the right kind - flat terrain with clay soils.
It also has interstate highways and major railroad lines. That makes it easy to get garbage here and saves money, too. Both Norfolk Southern and CSX are available and willing haulers, landfill operators say.
Poverty is a selling point, too. The more financially desperate a county is the more likely it will opt for trash-for-cash. Instead of battling to keep landfill operators at bay, elected officials from dirt-poor, space-rich communities court them.
Landfill opponents have characterized the thrusting of out-of-state wastes onto these rural counties as "environmental racism." Del. Kenneth Melvin of Portsmouth thinks there is something to this. He is sponsoring a bill directing the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission to study the issue.
"People who are least able to offer resistance are being screwed," Melvin said.
Look at the demographics of most of the counties opting for commercial landfills and a pattern emerges:
Almost 60 percent of Sussex County's population is minority, and less than half of the county's overall population has graduated from high school.
Minorities make up about 44 percent of King and Queen County's population, and only 42 percent of the overall population are high school graduates.
Buckingham County, which is considering a waste incinerator, has 42 percent minorities. Overall, the county has 46 percent high school graduates.
A third of Amelia County residents are minority, and 44 percent of the overall population are high school graduates.
Charles City County, which opened its commercial landfill in 1990, is almost three-quarters minority.
"They target low-income and minority communities because they're powerless," said Pete Castelli, a regional director of Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste, an Arlington-based environmental watchdog group. "It's nothing but a pure stab at money by preying on poor rural communities."
Lower level of concern
Landfill operators say they offer opportunity, not exploitation. They call the notion of environmental racism bunk.
"We look for areas where there isn't a lot of population," said Jim Leonard, spokesman with Pittsburgh-based Chambers Development, which operates landfills for Amelia and Charles City counties. "We don't want to impact the local population."
Modern technology makes landfills safe, operators say. Even if there were a problem, counties are adequately protected. State and federal laws require operators to set money aside, or purchase bonds that can be used to close landfills should there be a pollution problem.
Those assurances usually last 30 years. Landfill opponents don't think that's long enough.
"They're not going to leak today, or next year, or maybe even in 10 years. But you can't find anybody who says these things don't leak," said Harold Hennigar, a professional geologist and a Gloucester County resident who opposes plans to put a commercial landfill there.
John Hadfield, deputy director of the Southeastern Public Service Authority, agrees that landfills do leak. But new engineering standards make them safe, he says.
If designed properly, landfills, such as the regional fills operated by the authority, will be an inert mass when complete. That's why it's safe to turn them into parks, like Mount Trashmore in Virginia Beach.
What concerns Hadfield isn't safety, but the size and speed at which "purely economic-driven landfills" are loaded. He also questions what goes into them.
Municipal landfills usually take only household garbage or trash. Those proposed for rural Virginia are more likely to accept industrial wastes, incinerator ash and other less innocuous materials.
Private operators "don't have the same level of concern for the region or the people who live there," Hadfield said.
Just what a municipality is in for when it contracts with private operators hinges on the integrity of the private company and the terms of the deal.
A Sussex County citizens' group hired Richmond lawyer John Rick to review the deal struck between county supervisors and a private operator. Rick said he was shocked at what he found.
"Of the 115 conditions in the contract, probably 80 were too seriously flawed that the county would not be able to get relief in court should the landfill operators not decide to do what they said."
Both the lawyer's findings and Sussex citizen protests failed to keep the landfill out. The controversy did, however, prompt the county to reconsider some of its demands.
"The debate over the issue wasn't necessarily a negative thing," said Sussex County Administrator George Walker. "As a result of the debate, we managed to get some concessions we might not have gotten otherwise."
It takes money
Citizens fail to understand that trash needs to be disposed of somewhere, officials like Walker say. And they don't appreciate the gravity of federal environmental laws being imposed on municipalities.
Come Oct. 9, small municipal landfills throughout the state may be forced to close because they don't meet new federal landfill guidelines. The new protections are designed to keep landfills from contaminating ground water and soil.
Virginia was one of the first states in the nation to adopt the new regulations. It's also among the first states to ask for flexibility in applying them, the Environmental Protection Agency announced this month.
Under the new regulations, municipalities may no longer simply dig a hole and fill it with garbage. New landfills must have at least one clay bed and a synthetic plastic liner. They must be engineered to collect and pump out leaking fluids. And landfills must have a large buffer zone.
Just about everybody agrees with the new regulations. But compliance with such laws is going to take money - lots of it.
Many rural counties, like Sussex and Gloucester, have little choice but to close existing landfills and join with cash-flush private companies to build new ones. Several of the small counties could band together to build a modern landfill to handle their trash. That's what a lot of citizens' groups favor. Regional landfills would be smaller and handle only area household waste, they say.
"No one in the county has said we don't want a landfill," said Hennigar, the Gloucester County geologist who opposes a commercial landfill there. "We're willing to pay to take care of our own garbage. You're not going to have any environmental problems with a 20-ton-a-day landfill."
Building and operating a regional fill, even a small one, would likely mean raising taxes, county officials insist. State-of-the-art landfills can cost upward of $400,000 an acre. To justify such outlays, landfills have to be big and they need a lot more waste than the 10 to 20 tons a day that rural counties generate, solid waste industry officials say.
Striking a deal with cash-flush solid waste companies makes the most sense, county officials insist. Commercial operators are willing to buy the land, build the fill, share a small percentage of the landfill proceeds and even take care of the host county's trash free.
Such an arrangement is hard to resist. Politicians in King George County couldn't. They agreed to a 2,000-ton-a-day landfill that will import waste.
"People want parks and recreational facilities, they want libraries, they want new schools," said King George County Administrator Eldon James. "Well, the money has to come from somewhere."
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY