| A McDowell County landfill is seeking to double the tonnage accepted by current West Virginia rules.
It has been at least 15 years since the last "Garbage War," when garbage companies wanted to set-up dumps in several WV counties to dispose millions of tons of waste, mostly from northeast states.
Now comes a new proposal to haul millions of tons of out-of-state garbage into McDowell County.
The West Virginia Senate is moving the legislation forward.
Sen. Brooks McCabe, D-Kanawha, has introduced a bill to consolidate power over landfill regulations and solid-waste planning in the hands of Environmental Protection Secretary Stephanie Timmermeyer, according to the Charleston Gazette.
Sen. McCabe, who appears to be the king of "bigger is better," supporting business bills, consolidating, centralizing, merging, and more recently a bill to allow the ultimate takeover of the rights of WV natural gas royalty owners.
McCabe, a Kanawha County developer, is the leader in WV county consolidation.
Environmental groups are opposed to the new dumping legislation, but watchers say it is likely to pass, at least for McDowell County.
"Back in 1991, the Legislature, with a lot of input from citizens, crafted the solid-waste law that has withstood several court challenges," said Norm Steenstra, executive director of the West Virginia-Citizen Action Group.
Steenstra said "Out-of-state garbage and the stigma of being the dumping ground of the East really resonated with West Virginians."
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, West Virginia was inundated with proposals to build huge landfills in several counties that would accept millions of tons of out-of-state trash.
Despite declarations of how much money counties would make from the deal, local citizens resisted.
Lawmakers passed a series of laws that gave local communities more say over landfill siting decisions, limited landfill size, required better solid-waste planning and mandated recycling programs. Lawmakers also distributed authority over solid-waste regulation among a variety of state and local agencies, to build in layers of checks and balances over the issue.
A control bill, passed under Gov. Gaston Caperton, capped landfill size at 30,000 tons per month in 1991.
The Gazette says that law included a loophole that allowed Philadelphia developer Jack T. Fugett of the land company Berwind to build a dump, with the approval of county voters, to take in up to 50,000 tons per month.
In 1992, McDowell voters overwhelmingly approved the 50,000-ton-per-month dump. But Fugett and a Berwind subsidiary, Capels Resources, backed off. Fugett said at the time that the size limitation made the project financially infeasible, reported the Gazette.
McDowell County officials worked out a plan to buy the project from Fugett and operate it as a regional facility.
Then, the county's solid-waste authority has contracted with EnviroSolutions Holdings Inc., a Chantilly, VA based company that owns landfills and garbage-hauling firms, to operate the McDowell dump.
Environmental reporter Ken Ward, Jr. says in 2005, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection tripled the landfill's permitted acreage, from 35 acres to 106 acres.
Now, Sens. Truman Chafin, D-Mingo, and John Pat Fanning, D-McDowell have introduced Senate Bill 629, allowing the McDowell County dump to double its monthly tonnage from 50,000 to 100,000 tons.
The bill also states after it accepted 600,000 tons in any year, the landfill would be exempt from paying $8.75 per ton in fees that other state dumps pay.
That money would be distributed among state and county agencies to be used in solid-waste programs.
Sen. Chafin views the dump as economic development, "It's probably going to be a big economic boon...The economic benefit is going to be tremendous for all of the surrounding counties."
Chafin said he understands the McDowell dump garbage would come from outside West Virginia, saying
"Is this the only industry we can get? A lot of people think so."
Fugett, who was involved in the original "Garbage Wars" is back in West Virginia to promote the new proposal. He has registered as a lobbyist for EnviroSolutions.
Another McCabe bill that is causing a stir is Senate Bill 701, writes Ken Ward, Jr. That bill would abolish the state Solid Waste Management Board and give its authority over statewide solid-waste planning to the DEP.
It would further eliminate county solid-waste authorities and mandate the formation of regional solid-waste boards instead, another centralized-consolidation measure pushed by McCabe.
It could be viewed as a "take-over" by bigger waste outfits.
"Regionalism is the way to go," said Mike Dorsey, of the DEP's Division of Waste Management. "Landfills need to be bigger to operate and comply with the law," said Dorsey.
McCabe's legislation would do away with the PSC's authority to force garbage haulers to obtain permits from the agency.
Norm Steenstra said "West Virginia basically said that we were going to take care of our own â that we would have small facilities and local control. These are radical departures from current law," he said.
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