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

DATE: TUESDAY, August 9, 1994                   TAG: 9408090082
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

ICE-STORM AID FOR MONTGOMERY

The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state Department of Emergency Services sent the disaster assistance to Montgomery to cover expenses from cleaning up after the Feb. 10-14 ice storm.

The sum is less than one-third of the $195,000 the Board of Supervisors had hoped to receive from the federal government. Many of the expenses included in that early estimate were not eligible for federal reimbursement.

Moreover, FEMA does not reimburse landfill tipping fees, which the county waived for 11 weeks for storm-related brush, said county grants coordinator Cindy Martin.

Instead, the agency paid for labor costs the county incurred while taking in the more than 7,000 tons of brush at the Mid-County Landfill and grinding it into mulch. The county gave away 8,700 tons of mulch over three and a half months, while suspending the normal mulch charge of $15 per ton.

"While [FEMA] thinks it covered our costs, it certainly didn't touch overhead or any extraneous costs," Martin said.

The landfill is required to be self-supporting through tipping fees. The normal tipping fee for brush is $38 per ton. That means the landfill would have realized more than $260,000 in revenue from the brush and $130,000 from the mulch, had normal fees been charged.

The county is still awaiting approval of another $2,050 related to the March 1 storm, County Administrator Betty Thomas said Monday.

The reimbursements came after the county, like most governments in the New River Valley, applied for help in paying for the massive cleanup of tree limbs and brush felled by the ice.

The federal government paid $44,380, or 75 percent of the $59,173 of county expenses that met federal guidelines. The state paid $12,426; the county received another $1,775 to cover the administrative costs of seeking the disaster aid.

Over all, the county Cooperative Extension agents estimated public and private storm damage at more than $1.6 million. The county staff estimated approximately $90,000 in public losses. But some of that did not qualify as eligible because of a regulation requiring a $1,000 minimum loss per site, Thomas said.

The county has decided to spend the federal and state storm aid as follows: debris chipping at the Mid-County Landfill, $40,454; debris removal at schools, parks and the county courthouse, $7,298; replacing trees at the courthouse, $1,201; replacing a backstop at Shawsville High School, $4,032; and reimbursing the Public Service Authority for generator rental to power wells during the storm, $3,821.