DATE: Saturday, June 21, 1997               TAG: 9706210357

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MEREDITH COHN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   87 lines

CHESAPEAKE PORT TO TAKE TRASH

Another company wants to bring garbage through the port of Hampton Roads.

A Richmond company plans to develop an Elizabeth River terminal in South Norfolk to accept municipal waste and other items barged from Northeastern states, company and city officials acknowledged Friday.

The facility is being developed just north of the Jordan Bridge by Richmond-based Environmental Solutions Inc., an environmental cleanup company that bought the site to decontaminate and sell it.

When the terminal opens, Chesapeake will become the second Hampton Roads city to start accepting marine shipments of trash. A terminal in downtown Portsmouth began accepting waste last month. Trucks are also hauling Northeast trash down the Eastern Shore and through Hampton Roads, on their way to landfills in rural Virginia.

Household trash from New York and other states increasingly has flowed to Virginia landfills, making the state the second-largest importer of waste in the country with an estimated 1.7 million tons a year. And with this newest terminal, the path through Hampton Roads' cities appears to be widening.

Barges are expected as soon as October at ``Chesaport,'' as the terminal will be called. Chesapeake officials expect a site plan soon.

The proposal has upset businesses and residents in the area who say some city officials promised them that no trash would come through the site, known as the J.G. Wilson property.

But Environmental Solutions doesn't need special waste permits to operate the facility because the shipping containers will be sealed at all times - keeping trash out of sight and smell, city and state officials said.

``We want to make sure everything is done in an environmentally sensitive way - that's our businesses,'' said Brenda Robinson, who owns Environmental Solutions with her husband, Phil. ``The containers will be hermetically sealed. We don't want to do anything to jeopardize our company's reputation or hurt our core business.''

The company expects the terminal to eventually create 150 jobs and generate an annual economic impact of nearly $9.5 million.

``I'm excited they're doing something with the property,'' said Donald Z. Goldberg, Chesapeake's economic development director, who had been unsuccessful for years in finding a developer willing to take on liability for the 23-acre property because of environmental contamination.

``I'm concerned with everything they're bringing in there, but trash has to be handled in a certain way, and I'm confident they'll follow all the rules,'' he said. ``They're an environmental company and they probably have more experience than most in dealing with the issues.''

But that does not assuage the local business community, which along with residents and other South Norfolk groups, has been working to revitalize the area.

They had been pushing for some kind of retail operation like Norfolk's Waterside mall on their waterfront, but Environmental Solution's Robinson said the site's heavy industrial neighbors make it unsuitable for that.

Still, Leo Johns, president of the South Norfolk Business Consortium, and Gerald Johnson, president of the civic league, said the groups' members are angry no one told them details about the project until recently. Residents plan to complain to City Council and may pursue legal action to stop it.

``The tax revenue and the jobs, that part is good,'' Johns said. ``But it's a shame we couldn't have gotten something other than the trash part.''

Johnson said the terminal is ``not the direction we wanted to go. On the other side of the Jordan Bridge is a park, boat ramp and playground. We would have liked something that fit in with that.''

But city attorney Ronald Hallman said, ``It's zoned correctly and as long as the containers stayed sealed, we can't stop it.''

Environmental Solutions bought the land at auction several years after the previous owner, J.G. Wilson, an overhead door manufacturer, went bankrupt. Environmental Solutions cleaned the property through a voluntary state program aimed at rejuvenating old industrial sites. State environmental authorities have deemed the site safe.

It's the first property developed by the company, which is working to bring other cargo to the terminal besides trash. Contracts are in the works for products including bulk food items such as salad oils and plastic pellets, Robinson said.

The company plans to use mostly rail to haul their cargo. A rail line that runs through the property connects with both Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation.

Robinson said the company plans to demolish six of the seven buildings on the property beginning within 60 days. Landscaping will also be improved, she said.

The facility will be regulated as a container transfer station and not as a waste operation, leaving the state Department of Environmental Quality and the city Inspections Department with no regulatory authority over the garbage unless it leaks, officials at the agencies said. Depending on the site plan, the Army Corps of Engineers may have authority over wetlands permits. ILLUSTRATION: Map: Area Shown: Site of container transfer station

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