Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 23, 1994 TAG: 9402230040
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FINCASTLE LENGTH: Medium
The action is the latest installment in the legal tussle over the county's air-pollution ordinance.
The air board struck down the ordinance in December 1992. But the county sued, and Circuit Judge George Honts ruled in October that the air board must reconsider.
Since then, County Attorney William "Buck" Heartwell says, he has been trying to get the board to schedule a hearing on the matter. But the board has refused to do so, he said.
County officials fear the board will delay a hearing on Botetourt's rules until the General Assembly passes legislation outlawing local air ordinances.
The board's next meeting is March 14, but it has yet to commit to putting the county's case on the agenda. "Given the past history," Heartwell said, "I'm naturally a little apprehensive."
Keith Buttleman, deputy director of the board's parent agency, the state Department of Environmental Quality, said the board is moving forward with Honts' order. He said the order "had no particular due date," but the agency's staff is re-evaluating the ordinance "as the judge ordered."
A Circuit Court hearing on the contempt request has been set for March 10.
The Board of Supervisors passed the disputed ordinance in 1992 to try to control a hazardous-waste incinerator that Roanoke Cement Co. hoped to build in the county. The company since has changed its plans, but the county went forward with the ordinance to deal with future emissions cases.
Virginia law allows local governments to pass their own air pollution rules - as long as they are at least as tough as state regulations. The air board's lawyers claim the Botetourt ordinance is not stringent enough.
But Heartwell argues that the ordinance is tough enough - and that the real reason the air board rejected the ordinance is that it doesn't like the idea of local governments writing their own pollution rules.
Last October, Honts ruled that the air board and its staff acted with "fundamental unfairness" by raising last-minute technical objections and not giving the county a chance to respond. He said the state agency had tried to undermine the lawmaking power that belongs to the General Assembly.
In the meantime, the air board has gone back to the General Assembly to seek a repeal of the law allowing local air-pollution ordinances. The repeal bill has been passed by the House of Delegates and is being considered by the Senate.
If the bill gets final approval, the repeal will take effect July 1. Heartwell believes that if Botetourt can get air board approval of its rules before then, they will be "grandfathered" into the law.
But if approval of the county's air rules is delayed, he said, the local ordinance might be wiped out.
by CNB