Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 8, 1995 TAG: 9506080061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY REED
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It was a landfill in the 1950s, and Washington Park is there now. A regular stream flows through there, not just a little dribble. Children play there all summer, and if I were a kid, I'd play in it myself, but it flows right through a former landfill. Maybe it doesn't pose a health problem, but I'm really concerned about it. I hauled trash myself and dumped it there.
A.J., Salem
A: No one, apparently, is monitoring the quality of that stream on an official basis. The landfill was closed and covered about 1964, more than 20 years before modern monitoring requirements were adopted.
The city of Roanoke and the state's Department of Environmental Quality said they don't have records of any monitoring of the stream, which is called Lick Run.
It flows from the Valley View Mall area through Northwest Roanoke, behind the Roanoke Civic Center and under Norfolk Southern's East End Shops. It then flows in a concrete channel along Campbell Avenue Southeast to Tinker Creek.
Lick Run probably isn't a major source of pollution, because water-quality monitoring downstream in the Roanoke River shows that the water is fairly clean, said Bill Tanger of Friends of the Roanoke River.
Given the natural process by which streams flush out during floods and deposit silt, it's likely that the garbage has been covered and normal water flow doesn't pick up many contaminants.
Regional borders
Q: What is S(s)outhwestern Virginia? What is C(c)entral Virginia?|
M.L., Roanoke
A: Depends on who's talking - or writing.
Regional names serve as a reference point to help readers locate communities.
There's no official, state-sanctioned definition of where the Southwest and central regions begin and end.
This newspaper in most instances uses Southwest Virginia to mean the counties west of the New River Valley and Virginia 100.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch, on the other hand, treats Southwest Virginia as being every place south of Charlottesville and west of U.S. 29 - with an occasional exception for tobacco-producing areas.
There's even less agreement on what constitutes central Virginia. Various schools and business groups within "central" Virginia claim different counties for their region.
Some claim Bedford County for central Virginia while excluding Charlottesville - which would come as a great surprise to those residents of `Hooville who think of their place as central indeed.
Got a question about something that might affect other people, too? Something you've come across and wondered about? Give us a call at 981-3118. Maybe we can find the answer.
by CNB