ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 20, 1996 TAG: 9610210011
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRISTINA NUCKOLS STAFF WRITER
RESIDENTS OF THE Bradshaw community didn't want a landfill built near their homes, but they've learned to live with it, thanks to the resource authority, a local fellow and some good barbecue.
R.J. Garman Jr. and John Hubbard know a little something about getting along with others.
When Garman started raising pigs in the 1970s, he invited his neighbors in Bradshaw over for a barbecue.
"A pig farmer is not the most popular thing," he observed. "So every year, to appease the neighbors, we'd roast a pig and we'd get lots of people."
The cookouts stopped in the early 1980s when Garman sold his 50 sows. But three years ago, Garman, who was president of the Bradshaw Citizens Association, started thinking about those pig roasts again.
That's when Hubbard came to town. He wasn't moving his family to Bradshaw. He was bringing a landfill.
Since then, the executive director of the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority has developed his own reputation for community relations. When a Bradshaw woman complained that workers traveling in the resource authority's shuttle van had honked and made catcalls at her, Hubbard got on the phone immediately. He called the florist.
"I just sent some flowers to her and apologized and told our guys if that happened again, either they'd be disciplined or they'd lose their jobs," he said.
Of course, Hubbard can't send bouquets to every man, woman and child in Bradshaw. Instead, he and Garman have found that the same strategy once used to make a pig farm more palatable can work just as well with trash. They decided that Bradshaw residents should be included in the resource authority's annual picnic.
On Saturday, about 115 people - resource authority workers and Bradshaw residents - gathered at the landfill for pork and chicken barbecue, bluegrass music and pumpkin carving for the children.
The Bradshaw Citizens Association was created as a means of communicating with the resource authority, not fighting it. And oftentimes the conversations occur over a meal. It was Garman's idea for the association to cater the grand opening of the landfill in 1993. Members cooked the food and served all 300 guests.
The event was such a hit there was no question the community would be included when plans were made for annual employee picnics, held in the shop area of the station where trains deliver the region's garbage each weekday morning.
The shared meals don't mean Bradshaw residents approve of the landfill. Some families left the village to escape it, and those who stayed still have regrets.
"The landfill has changed the mountain," said Lois Ferguson, who has lived in Bradshaw since 1939. "Fort Lewis is a beautiful mountain. They went in there and just skinned it off slick as a baby's behind. I would have rather not had it; but if we don't want it, we'd better quit making trash."
It took more than flowers to win over the community.
Hubbard said the turning point came when the resource authority chose to transport trash by train rather than by running garbage trucks down Bradshaw Road. A compensation program for property owners who believe the landfill has devalued land they are trying to sell also helped. And each year, the authority donates $1,000 each to the local fire company and rescue squad and another $10,000 for community projects.
Hubbard also makes sure workers clear debris each day along the road to the landfill, and he allows R.J. Garman to drive his pickup around the site to keep an eye on the goings-on there.
"Everybody's kind of pacified now," said Mildred Garman, R.J.'s wife. "They have bent over backwards to keep us happy."
"I will have to say they came in here and did a nice job," Ferguson said. "They keep it nice."
Some people in neighboring Mason Cove aren't quite sure what to make of the relationship between Bradshaw and the landfill.
"The [authority] is awfully nice to those people, at least when they're talking to them," said John Reed, president of the Mason Cove Civic League.
"They're trying to buy them off," said Arthur Mellen, who also lives in Mason Cove. "Hubbard's a P.R. man, and he's a smooth operator."
At the same time, Reed and Mellen said resource authority officials have been true to the promises they made when the landfill was in its planning stages.
"By and large, it's been better than I thought," Mellen said.
Still, Reed said he thought it a bit weird when he heard about a proposal to put picnic tables at Smith Gap.
"I said, 'Who in the world would ever come to the county dump for a picnic?'''
Bradshaw residents would have had the same reaction three years ago when Smith Gap showed up on the list of possible landfill sites. They aligned themselves with the Mason Cove Civic League to oppose it. But once it became clear the landfill was coming, they decided to form their own group.
Garman was chosen to be president of the Bradshaw Citizens Association, which represents about 40 families living near the landfill. He and his wife and about a dozen local residents met with Hubbard one Saturday morning.
"We got in the back of somebody's pickup," Hubbard recalled. "The ladies were in the back, too, and we went in that to the top of the mountain, and I showed them the site. I guess I was sort of amazed at the way R.J. handled the whole thing. He said if this is the best site, then he supports it coming here. It sort of stuck in my mind that here's a guy who's lived here all his life, and he's standing up to his neighbors that were saying it's not going in here no matter what. I gained a lot of respect for him that day."
The Bradshaw Citizens Association meets only when a problem exists. Lately, there haven't been many meetings - unless you count the picnics.
LENGTH: Long : 107 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff Communication initiated by John Hubbardby CNB(left) and R.J. Garman Jr. smoothed the road for the landfill.
color. Graphic: Map by staff.