SPSA to pay for pumping tainted water into waterway

SPSA has agreed to pay a $14,000 fine to settle environmental violations at its regional landfill in Suffolk in the aftermath of Tropical Depression Ernesto in 2006.

Officials with the Southeastern Public Service Authority announced the proposed deal Wednesday, reached after 17 months of investigation and negotiation with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

It is the first time SPSA has gotten into trouble with environmental regulators in this way, according to a state enforcement officer, and comes as the waste authority serving eight cities and counties in South Hampton Roads is trying to reform itself after years of financial and managerial strife.

"We made some mistakes," John Hadfield, SPSA's executive director, told his board of directors Wednesday. "But we believe no environmental harm resulted because of this."

Much of the fine, or $12,600, will be dedicated to the Elizabeth River Project, a local conservation group, to help pay for environmental cleanup activities. The rest will be kept by the state to assist in emergency responses.

The proposed settlement will be released for public comment on Monday and will become official if few objections are raised over the following month.

SPSA's problems began after heavy rains from Ernesto swamped a newly opened section of the public landfill, located near the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, in Suffolk.

According to state and SPSA accounts, a landfill employee wrongly started pumping garbage-tainted storm water into a ditch and pond connected to Burnett's Mill Creek, a tributary of the Nansemond River.

Such pumping continued for four days, state officials said, with more than 2.1 million gallons of storm water released into the environment.

Once SPSA's managers heard about the pumping, they contacted the state, as required by law, to report the illegal discharges.

SPSA sampled the escaped water and determined it was not contaminated. But because the water had come into contact with trash, officials classified it as "leachate," a highly regulated pollutant.

Since then, training and control procedures have been improved at the landfill to curb similar errors, and the employee responsible for the pumping "has been disciplined," Hadfield told the board Wednesday.

The settlement comes less than a month after the state fined the owner of the largest landfill in Virginia, Atlantic Waste Disposal Inc., $14,250 for spilling 8,000 gallons of leachate in 2006.

The accident occurred at the landfill, near the town of Waverly in Sussex County, when a truck driver fell asleep while his rig was being loaded with leachate.

Officials from Atlantic Waste Disposal and other privately run landfills said Wednesday that they had no flooding or storm-water problems during Ernesto.

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com