Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 24, 1994 TAG: 9402240084
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A House of Delegates budget committee turned down a request by Del. Creigh Deeds, D-Warm Springs, for $9.6 million to permanently cap the dump, build a leachate treatment plant and monitor the site.
Instead, the committee set aside $250,000 to study potential public health threats and to determine cleanup costs at the roughly 2,000 abandoned dumps around the state.
A legislative subcommittee will be appointed to review that information and make a report by Dec. 1.
"In a way, it was positive, because they finally decided they're going to look at this," Aggie Vint said Wednesday. Vint is an Alleghany County resident who helped lead the fight five years ago to force the state to close the dump in her community.
On the other hand, Vint said, "They go on about 2,000 landfills in the state of Virginia. That's not our problem."
Jim Roberts, an aide to the House committee, said the panel did not want to set a precedent by giving almost $10 million in state money to clean up Kim-Stan. At that rate, cleaning up 2,000 dumps could cost $2 billion, he said.
"I think this is a reasonable step forward," Roberts said. Virginia has no clear policy on how to handle landfills and dump sites whose owners aren't known or don't have the money to clean them up. The study committee was set up to shape such a policy, he said.
The Senate passed a bill by Sen. Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, R-Fincastle, that would appropriate state funds to clean up waste sites on a priority basis. Trumbo said Kim-Stan is at the top of the list.
The money would come from a fee, proposed in the governor's budget, on all solid waste and hazardous waste generated or dumped in Virginia.
Vint said she and other county citizens will continue to push for money to clean up Kim-Stan, which was run as a private dump beginning in 1988, taking in thousands of tons of garbage, much of it from the Northeast.
The state closed the dump in 1990 after a fish kill alerted officials and residents to extensive environmental contamination. The owners filed for bankruptcy, barring the state from collecting enough money to close the site properly.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1994
by CNB