ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, August 6, 1996 TAG: 9608060097
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
Roanoke taxpayers would be stuck with a $1.5 million annual bill if private commercial trash haulers in the city begin taking waste to a private landfill instead of the Roanoke Valley's new Smith Gap landfill.
"This is a very serious matter that we might be faced with soon," City Manager Bob Herbert told City Council on Monday. "It could have a dramatic impact for our taxpayers."
If commercial trash is taken elsewhere by the three major private haulers, he said, the income from dumping fees at Smith Gap could decrease by more than 40 percent.
The city would have to help make up the lost revenue to pay off the $3 million annual construction debt on the landfill.
Roanoke would have to pay a higher disposal rate, projected to increase from $50 to $81 a ton, if the major haulers take trash to another landfill, Herbert said.
Vinton and Roanoke County would be faced with similar increases to help make up the remaining $1.5 million a year to cover their portion of the debt on the landfill. Salem is not a member of the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority, which operates the Smith Gap landfill.
At Herbert's urging, City Council set a Sept. 16 public hearing on a proposed change in the resource authority's charter that would let it collect commercial trash in competition with private companies.
Herbert said the authority does not want to get into the collection business unless the private companies stop using Smith Gap.
"If the trash does not leave the Roanoke Valley, there's no need for the authority to get into the collection business," he said. "If it does, it will have a serious impact on the resource authority's budget."
Herbert said the city and authority suspect some private haulers might be interested in using private landfills, possibly outside the valley. None has announced plans to do so.
"This is a national problem, and other localities are facing the same situation," Herbert said. "We went forward with [constructing the $42 million Smith Gap landfill] assuming that the trash would remain in our landfill."
But localities can't control the flow of trash because of court rulings and changes in state law. Previously, municipalities could require haulers to use public landfills.
None of the private haulers has announced plans to pull out of Smith Gap, but Browning Ferris Industries, a national trash hauler and owner of the Roanoke-based Handy Dump, are worried about the proposed change that would allow the resource authority to collect trash.
"We're very concerned and opposed to that," Mike Mee, a BFI marketer, said last week. But no one opposed council's decision Monday to set the hearing.
The three commercial haulers - BFI, Waste Management of Virginia and Virginia Container Service - collect about 85,000 tons of the 189,000 tons dumped each year at Smith Gap.
City Attorney Wilburn Dibling said Vinton and Roanoke County would also have to approve a change in the authority's charter before it could collect trash.
Herbert said he thought the localities need to change the charter so the resource authority will be prepared to collect commercial trash if the private haulers stop using Smith Gap.
"We want to bring it to you before it's too late," he said. "We want to be prepared."
Councilman William White agreed that the city shouldn't wait until the authority is in a bind.
"The magnitude of the dollars and our investment makes it necessary for us to be in a position to protect our taxpayers," he said.
White said the city also should try to get the General Assembly to change state law so it can require city trash to be dumped at Smith Gap.
Councilman Nelson Harris urged Herbert and the authority to try to work with the private haulers to avoid an adversarial relationship.
"The better thing is for them to keep using our landfill," Harris said, "and I would ask you to sit down and have conversations with them."
Herbert assured Harris that city and resource authority officials will meet with the private haulers to try to ensure that they keep using Smith Gap.
In other action Monday, council:
* Approved the sale of 13 acres in the Roanoke Centre for Industry and Technology to Orvis, a mail-order company, to permit the construction of a 100,000-square-foot addition to its business. The $2.3million addition is Orvis' second expansion since it moved to the city in 1987.
* Referred a proposal for the development of a police firing range in the Carvins Cove area back to a committee that has been studying the issue. The committee has recommended that the city seek permission from Roanoke County to develop the range, which would be in the county. But William Hopkins, an attorney, asked council to return the proposal to the committee because he has a client with an alternative approach that he believes would be better and cheaper.
* Filed a request from Ed Natt, an attorney for the Roanoke Valley Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, that a request to rezone four acres off Lynn Brae Drive and U.S. 460 to permit a new animal shelter be referred back to the Planning Commission. Natt said he was hired to represent the SPCA after the commission recommended denial of the rezoning, and he is gathering additional informationt. But council took no action on his request because it has already scheduled a public hearing on the rezoning at its Aug. 19 meeting. Dibling said council could refer the rezoning request back to the commission after the hearing if it chooses, but it should not do so before the hearing.
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