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

DATE: TUESDAY, March 7, 1995                   TAG: 9503070099
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-8   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

MONTGOMERY COUNTY HONORS LANDFILL CREW

This time a year ago, the New River Valley crawled out from under the second devastating ice storm in less than a month. Blacksburg and Christiansburg residents spent weeks piling up fallen tree limbs and other brush for removal by the towns' cleanup crews.

All that material went to one place: Montgomery's Mid-County Landfill.

For three months after the natural disaster, a dozen Montgomery County employees spent hour after hour grinding the debris into mulch, then giving it away after the Board of Supervisors decided that was the only way to get rid of the surplus. By summer, the landfill staff had finished the bulk of the job, though debris continued to straggle in for months afterward.

Last week, the Montgomery Board of Supervisors honored the landfill crew for its work. All 12 men are listed on a plaque as collective winners of the Supervisors' Award for Creativity and Excellence. The board also gave each man a $100 check.

County Planning Director Joe Powers nominated the crew for the annual award. "The ice storms ... brought hardships to everyone living in the New River Valley," he wrote. "Despite their own problems at home, landfill personnel proceeded to work seven days a week for three months processing brush and debris on top of their regular duties of running the largest landfill in the region."

The crew received 6,000 tons of storm debris and generated 8,000 tons of mulch from that and from leftover debris that came in following a June 1993 wind storm. But their work is never done: the supervisors decided to give away more mulch until the existing mulch pile is gone.

The honored landfill employees include: equipment operators Tommy Hughes, Todd Hughes and Gary Davis; mechanics Jesse R. Smith and Mike Reed; shop foreman Russell Early; truck drivers David Barnett Jr. and Robert Bradbury; recycling employee Ricky Underwood; collections foreman Gene Funkhouser; landfill foreman Jack Tawney Sr.; and public works director Tim McCoy.

Eight of the crew members will be part of the 20 county employees transferring to the newly created Montgomery Regional Solid Waste Authority. Beginning July 1, the authority will take responsibility for running the Mid-County Landfill and county recycling center.

Randall Bowling, previously Montgomery's public facilities director, started work last week as executive director of the new authority. "They worked a lot of nights until 9 or 10," he said. "I'm proud of having such a dedicated group of people working with me, and I think those people will be a real asset for the authority."

by CNB