Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 21, 1995 TAG: 9506210117
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLAND LENGTH: Medium
But CaseLin Systems Inc. still is insisting that the state Department of Environmental Quality process its permit application. A public hearing on the application is scheduled for 7 p.m. July 17 at Bland County High School.
Michael L. Perkins of Kernersville, N.C., said Tuesday that he controls 85 percent of the stock in CaseLin, a company named for his children, Casey and Lindsey. He said John Olver, a Blacksburg consultant, holds the remaining 15 percent. Olver could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
The lawsuit is unrelated to CaseLin and involves another company in which the men were partners. Perkins filed it in federal court last week, seeking damages from Olver, Olver's wife and others. It charges that they squeezed him out of Tellurian Inc., which was involved with landfill operations in Page County. Tellurian had filed a suit earlier this year against Perkins, charging breach of his duties as a director of the corporation.
"It's going to have a hard time going forward with me and Olver," Perkins said of the incinerator project. "It ain't gonna happen unless we settle the lawsuit and he buys me out or I buy him out."
Perkins said he thought the project eventually would be completed, perhaps by a consortium of hospitals seeking ways to get rid of their medical wastes.
"It's gonna be built, would be my guess, by somebody. But not by me and John Olver," he said. "I can't continue to spend money on a project ... with a partner that I'm in a lawsuit with."
CaseLin has sought a permit for the incinerators, which are to be built on an undisclosed site off U.S. 52 near Bastian, since 1990. "If it weren't for the Tellurian lawsuit, we'd be fired up and ready to go," Perkins said.
The Bland County Board of Supervisors endorsed the project in 1990, citing the jobs and revenue it would bring. Massive public opposition caused the supervisors to vote 3-1 to change their minds the following year, but it was too late to enact zoning or otherwise stop the process.
But it has moved slowly since then, with Bland County residents speaking against it on trips to Richmond and at two briefings held this month by the Department of Environmental Quality.
More than 100 opponents turned out Monday night for the most recent briefing. Some claimed Gov. George Allen has stacked the department with officials more pro-industry than pro-environment, and that they relaxed state restrictions enough to allow CaseLin to proceed.
Fifty-three percent of those responding to a statewide poll released Tuesday wanted stricter regulation of incinerators, even though the cost to business could rise. The percentage was similar among the Southwest Virginians surveyed.
The question was posed last month to 511 Virginians, including 59 in Western Virginia, as part of a larger poll by Connecticut-based Dick Morris Consultants for the Virginia Environmental Endowment. The poll has a 2.4 percentage-point margin of error.
"Who pays for this if some of our milk gets contaminated?" Bland County farmer Melinda Belcher demanded at Monday's hearing. "I want to know who's gonna pick up the tab if and when it does happen.
Other speakers claimed the department's air-quality model predicting levels of incinerator pollutants is flawed because of the way the atmosphere hangs in the county's mountains and valleys. Michael Overstreet, director of the department's Southwest Virginia regional office, urged them to make their points at the hearing July 17.
Staff writer Cathryn McCue provided information for this story.
by CNB