ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 30, 1997 TAG: 9701300021
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: DUBLIN
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
Two Dublin Town Council members who have not taken sides on whether to allow the expansion of the New River Resource Authority may be the ones who settle the issue.
"I am still listening," Councilwoman Peggy Hemmings told about 45 people attending a public hearing on the matter Tuesday night. "When the time comes, I will vote the way the people tell me to vote."
Based on the 10 speakers who addressed the hearing, that could mean a "no" vote. Only one of the 10 favored the agreement to add Montgomery County, Virginia Tech and Blacksburg and Christiansburg to the NRRA.
A "no" vote by the seven-member Dublin council could torpedo a proposed regional solution to the New River Valley's long-term garbage disposal needs. For now, two council members oppose the agreement, two favor it, two are uncommitted, and the mayor has said he would vote "no" to break a tie.
Councilman Alden Hankla, who was not at the hearing in the Dublin Middle School, has not said how he would vote.
Benny Skeens and Sam Gregory have declared their opposition to the agreement, unless it is renegotiated with a Dublin representative included in the negotiations.
"We're not against Montgomery County coming in," Skeens said. "Our biggest problem was the way this contract was negotiated. We were not included."
The current NRRA members are Pulaski County, Radford and Dublin. (Pulaski is represented as part of Pulaski County, but not separately like Dublin.) The NRRA negotiators were county Supervisor Jerry White and Radford Mayor Tom Starnes.
The remaining council members, Dave Farmer and Dr. David Stanley, seemed inclined to vote for the agreement. They said it has already been adjusted to meet some of the opponents' concerns, including the spelling out of each member having veto power over such decisions as bringing waste into the NRRA landfill - which will be located in Pulaski County - from outside the participating jurisdictions.
If one of the two uncommitted council members voted for the agreement and the other against, Mayor Benny Keister said he would break the tie by voting "no."
All three current members would have to vote for the agreement. Radford City Council did so Monday night. Pulaski County has not acted.
The matter is on the agenda for discussion at tonight's joint meeting of the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors and Pulaski and Dublin councils, at 7 p.m. in Columbia Pulaski Community Hospital's Education Building.
Pulaski Town Council will meet there at 6:30 p.m. and is expected to pass a resolution opposing the contract as currently written, though such a resolution would have no direct effect on the agreement. Its major concern seems to be a change in NRRA representation which would see Pulaski County and Dublin lose their 3-2 board majority over Radford. The new agreement allows three representatives each for the Montgomery County localities, Radford, and for Pulaski County and Dublin combined.
That issue concerned many of the speakers, because Pulaski County will be the site of the new NRRA landfill on Cloyds Mountain. "We should tell them what to do, not we get three votes and they have six," said Terry Selleck. "I just think you ought to vote it down and renegotiate it. Get it done right."
"We need to be in control of what's in our back yard," said Craig Strain. As for the enlarged membership bringing down disposal costs, he suggested that those fees should actually be higher to encourage recycling of wastes.
Andy McCready, an early opponent of the agreement, said the fact that it was secretly negotiated should have worried people months ago. "Apparently it was so secret, it didn't involve you all either," he told Dublin officials.
"If Montgomery County is allowed to use our landfill, its life will be cut to less than half," said Colbern Linkous, a former councilman. "If pollution problems occur in the end, they will become our problems. About all we will get out of the extra traffic is more noise and damage to our roads."
Truck traffic also concerned Vickie Sutphin, who had delivered a petition to the county with nearly 300 signatures opposing the agreement.
The only speaker in favor of the agreement was John Jordan, an NRRA employee who manages the current landfill in Radford and would manage the new one in Pulaski County. Jordan is a Pulaski County resident and said he would not favor an agreement which would hurt his home area.
"There's a lot of misinformation out there," he said. "The bottom line is that we can dispose of our waste together for a lot less money than we can dispose of our waste by ourselves."
Jordan said landfills will eventually be replaced by disposal methods such as incineration, composting of organic wastes, recycling and reducing wastes at their source. But all these initiatives cost money, he said, and Pulaski County may not be able to afford them unless it reduces disposal costs by expanding the NRRA.
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF. Former council member Colbernby CNBLinkous addresses the audience and Dublin Town Council during a
public hearing on NRRA expansion held at Dublin Middle School on
Tuesday evening. color.