DATE: Wednesday, March 26, 1997             TAG: 9703260442

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MEREDITH COHN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:  134 lines

OVERLOOKED LANDFILL HAS SOME NEIGHBORS WORRIED

She opened her door one day last summer and there it was: A pile of trash nearly 70 feet tall and spread over eight acres.

A neighbor had just cut down a stand of pines across from her Elbow Road home, and Cindy Bray saw the mound for the first time. She always knew her neighbors were operating a sand borrow pit there, but she had no idea a landfill loomed beyond the trees.

The construction demolition and debris landfill - filled with tree stumps, bricks, cement - had been piling up since 1979 on land owned by Daniel L. Thrasher Jr. between Elbow and Butts Station roads in this countrylike part of the growing city.

The landfill and accompanying borrow pit are legal, according to city and state officials. And despite years of violations cited by inspectors, the business - called Elbow Road Farm Inc. - is not considered a problem in government inspectors' eyes.

It is, however, a problem to neighbors who can see the waste from their living room windows, and to other residents who are just learning it's there and that before it's done it may grow to twice the size of Mount Trashmore, the Virginia Beach municipal landfill-turned-park.

While many of Chesapeake's residents are new, neighbors on this part of Elbow Road have been around for a while. They know each other's names. They stop to talk at the mailbox. Residents now are wondering how something so big eluded them for so long.

Warren Thrasher, a son of the property owner, said neighbors have been able to see the landfill for years, although he said it became more visible when the trees were cut along Elbow Road to accommodate expansion of the borrow pit.

Thrasher, who does not run the operation, said the family knew the public probably would have complaints eventually, but he decided to open the landfill because it fit well economically with the borrow pit business. Customers could dump construction debris and pick up sand at the same time.

From her house, Bray has an unobstructed view of the mound of waste that rises as high as a seven-story building and covers an area twice the size of a baseball field. Her father bought the property she lives on in 1974, and family members said they always knew the Thrashers were excavating sand from a pit on the adjacent property - the families have been friendly during the years. Some members of the Thrasher family still live on Elbow Road nearby.

``It looked green, and I didn't really think about it,'' Bray said about the landfill. ``A couple of months ago the smells started, and we noticed all the trucks dumping - starting at 7 a.m. in the morning. Then there was a fire that smelled for about two weeks. We started investigating then.''

The Brays and other neighbors say they worry about their property values, their views and the potential for taxpayers to bear the cost of cleanup and monitoring if the Thrashers leave.

City and state records show that the Thrashers followed all the rules in notifying neighbors of the landfill and the borrow pits when they obtained permits and when they sought an expansion in 1984. They went through a public hearing and gained unanimous approval from the City Council and the state Department of Environmental Quality.

City Public Works Director John A. O'Connor notes that the city uses the landfill. ``It's no secret,'' he said. Mayor William E. Ward, who served on the City Council when the landfill was issued its permit, said the area was largely rural until recently and no one had opposed construction.

Records at the state Department of Environmental Quality show the agency inspects the site about eight times a year, and they show violations have been found regularly. The most persistent problems were blowing debris, failure to cover the waste with soil, too large of an exposed work area, safety problems and illegal dumping of items. The problems often resulted in ``unsatisfactory'' ratings.

But state inspector Milton L. Johnston said those violations are common at landfills, and each time the Thrashers were notified of problems, they acted to correct them. ``That's what landfills do,'' he said. ``We tell them what's wrong and they fix it.''

Other inspectors noted that the Thrasher landfill is not the biggest private landfill in the region or even in Chesapeake, nor is it the smelliest, nor the only one in a residential neighborhood. Higgerson-Buchanan Inc. on Dominion Boulevard, for example, is a larger construction demolition and debris landfill. And municipal landfills filled with decaying household trash tend to smell worse than construction demolition and debris landfills, inspectors added. The smell from the Thrasher landfill may come from the soil used to cover the waste, inspectors said.

The city granted Elbow Road Farm Inc. permission to expand the landfill from eight to 29 acres in 1984. A request made to the state was never completed, so waste is still not permitted to expand outside eight acres. In the next two or three years, when the Thrashers are expected to fill the eight acres, they plan to go up.

They have already begun building a soil and concrete berm around the landfill that will support the rising pile of waste.

Before more waste is filled in, a slope-stability study must be conducted: The Thrashers must prove the soil and concrete wall, which is permitted to slope out to the 29 acres agreed to by the city, can support the waste. Department of Environmental Quality officials say they know of no other plan of this sort in the state.

This is where the Brays hope to stop the landfill.

``He may be legal now, but we're going to try and convince the state not to let it get any bigger,'' Bray said. ``If it's (the plan) not approved and the Thrashers decide to go to the state for permission to expand, then we'll get a public hearing that we'll pack. Public opinion should matter.''

Other longtime neighbors said they should have opposed the landfill before it grew so large.

Doug Hugo, who owns property east of the Thrashers' land, was sent a letter in 1984 notifying him of the request to expand - unlike many of the residents on Elbow Road, who were not given written notice because it was not required.

``I ignored it,'' Hugo admitted. ``I don't remember what it said, but I don't remember being alarmed by it. I thought the borrow pit was being expanded, which I didn't oppose, and any trash coming in there would be buried in the ground. If I knew what it would look like now, I absolutely would have opposed it.''

Another neighbor, Carroll Williamson, who owns the site where the Warrington Hall development is planned, said he also thought the waste would be buried. But, he said, he has no plans to fight the Thrashers, whom he considers friends.

Michael Sciancalepore, president of the Kemp Woods Civic Association, which lies north of the Thrasher property, said he is ``astonished'' the city approved his development and Warrington Hall - both upscale neighborhoods - so close to the landfill. He said he would attempt to inform potential buyers.

The Thrashers are considering building some other kind of barrier out of dirt or bushes a quarter-mile from the road to block the view of the landfill, he said.

When the site runs its course, he said, the land may be suited only for a recreational facility because of limitations placed on what can be built there. But, he said, ``There are no plans in concrete right now.''

In the meantime, Thrasher said, the landfill and borrow pit operators will try to comply with all city and state laws to protect the area's air and water. He also noted that he still has family members who live on Elbow Road, and he hopes that ``we can still be good neighbors.''

Even if the view on Elbow Road has changed. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

STEVE EARLEY/The Virginian-Pilot

Cindy Bray, walking with her goat, Eddie, was unaware of the

landfill near her Chesapeake home until trees on Elbow Road were cut

down.

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