Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 15, 1995 TAG: 9507170057
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LOW MOOR LENGTH: Long
If it could work on the moon, it certainly can work in Alleghany County, Va.
Thus spake B.C. Wolverton on Friday to the people of this small community who have been struggling for years to get the giant, stinking, leaking Kim-Stan dump cleaned up.
About 25 folk gathered at the Civil War-era Oakland Presbyterian Church across the road from the dump to hear the gospel of "bioremediation" as preached by Wolverton.
"I have lectured all over the industrial world, but never from the pulpit," Wolverton said from the altar. "But I think it's so appropriate with this situation, because we might need a little divine intervention."
"Amen to that, brother," replied a man from the rear pew.
Wolverton is an environmental engineer recently retired from NASA, where he spent years designing waste-water treatment systems that would work on space stations and moon colonies.
But he also put his ideas on the ground, converting the simple processes of nature to detoxify NASA's waste water. These days he works as a private consultant for clients ranging from huge chemical companies to small towns.
He thinks his ideas can work on Kim-Stan, and the state and federal government may help prove him right.
The 24-acre pile of trash, 80 feet deep in some spots, was closed in May 1990 after local residents forced the state to take action against the landfill's owners. After several rounds in and out of court, the owners went bankrupt, relinquishing all financial responsibility for the massive hole in the ground they had filled with 725,000 tons of trash.
The state Department of Environmental Quality put a layer of dirt over the dump, seeded it and moved on to other problems.
But the people who live in this narrow valley between Clifton Forge and Covington didn't forget about the dump. They can't.
On hot days like Friday, the dump has the distinct, strong odor of rotten eggs and manure - the smell of methane gas and carbon dioxide emanating from the top of the decomposing garbage.
Leaking out the bottom is rainwater runoff that has picked up heavy metals, PCBs, chlorine compounds and a host of other toxins as it trickled through the dump. On average, 36,000 gallons of leachate drain from Kim-Stan each day.
Wolverton's idea is to collect the leachate in a ditch or channel planted with cattails, bulrushes and other grasses, and spiked with billions of microbes.
The microbes would break down organic compounds in the leachate, and the plants would absorb heavy metals and other toxins through their root systems. By the time the runoff reached the nearby Jackson River, it would be clean, or nearly so.
"It's nature in perfect balance," Wolverton said. And it would be a lot cheaper than the $10 million one engineering company estimated it would take to permanently cap the landfill, collect the leachate and filter it in a conventional treatment facility.
"The key is to do something. Don't just sit and look at it and say we don't have $10 million," Wolverton said. "If you put a little marsh here, and a little marsh there, at least you're doing something."
Wolverton spent Friday morning walking through the knee-high weeds atop the dump. Bits of glass and plastic poked through the hardened dirt. A rubber tourniquet lay on the ground, and a murky brown liquid dribbled out of a pipe into a small puddle that bubbled every now and then.
Along for the walk was George McWhorter, mayor of Monterey in neighboring Highland County. McWhorter, also an engineer, contacted Wolverton eight years ago about building a wetland to treat Monterey's municipal sewage.
The town has been treating 100,000 gallons a day on less than an acre of marshland since then, and built it for less than half the $500,000 it would have cost for a conventional treatment plant.
Also on the tour were Marian Huber, with the Army Corps of Engineers' Norfolk district, and Patricia Katzen, assistant to Virginia's secretary of natural resources.
Huber and Katzen told the people at the meeting they were optimistic the system could work, and that the state and federal government could back it with some grant money.
The corps has $78,500 in its Partners in Environmental Progress program earmarked for the project, Huber said. The agency put another project in Virginia on hold to ensure that the Kim-Stan Advisory Committee gets the money, which is in this year's budget.
The entire program is under the budget-cutting ax in Congress and could be eliminated starting next year, Huber said. The money could be used only for a feasibility study, not for actual construction, and would have to be matched by in-kind services from the state and community.
Katzen said the state is committed to the project, and will aid in the grant proposal.
"My message here is that Peter [Schmidt, DEQ director,] has said he definitely wants to be involved here," Katzen said.
The committee has until early next week to pull together a draft proposal.
by CNB