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

DATE: TUESDAY, June 15, 1993                   TAG: 9306150313
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

PART OF SALEM PARK NOW CLOSED TO PUBLIC

City Manager Randy Smith said the measure was necessary to protect the city from lawsuits in case someone got hurt walking through the woods.

But residents of nearby Bent Ridge Lane - who are opposed to the landfill - said they couldn't understand why the city would make parkland off-limits to the public.

"People hike in that area," Dr. David Cummings said. "It's a public park, so I don't know what their motive was."

Smith denied that the city posted the signs in retaliation against residents who have sued City Council to block the landfill.

"The last people this was intended for was Bent Ridge," he said. "Everybody is supposed to keep off it, but I didn't want to smack them in the face."

Smith said the city no longer considers the southern section of 283-acre Mowles Spring Park suitable for recreation.

Salem must win the anti-landfill lawsuit before the state Department of Environmental Quality can give final consideration to the city's application for a landfill permit. Salem Circuit Judge G.O. Clemens has scheduled a hearing June 24.

The site would not be used until at least 1998, because City Council recently agreed to a five-year contract to truck the city's garbage to a private landfill in Amelia County, south of Richmond.