SPSA landfill expansion in jeopardy

SPSA has a problem.

The waste authority serving much of South Hampton Roads needs to expand its regional landfill in Suffolk to make room for future garbage and is planning to spend $22 million to do so.

But a state environmental law requires that newly built landfills stay at least one mile from drinking water sources. In Suffolk, an apartment complex that draws water from wells sits less than a mile from the expansion site.

"We've hit a roadblock," Richard Cherlias, a manager with the Southeastern Public Service Authority, told his board of directors last week.

On Thursday, SPSA executives argued before the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality that the law should not apply to their project and that a permit should be issued for construction, according to a department spokesman.

The environment department agreed to take the matter under consideration, but SPSA did not sound optimistic afterward.

"I had hoped we would have something to report," SPSA's executive director, John Hadfield, said in a prepared statement Friday, "but we do not."

Hadfield also expressed concern with looming state budget cuts to the environment department, noting that they "could adversely affect the time it takes for permit review and approval."

Other localities have asked state lawmakers for an exemption from the landfill rule, and two have been granted - to Mecklenburg and Halifax counties. But lawmakers already are in session this year. Since the two exemptions were granted, lawmakers have not received other requests warmly.

SPSA declined Friday to spell out its options if the state environment department rejects its arguments. Agency officials promised to provide a report next month to their board of directors.

The stakes are high.

The regional landfill is estimated to run out of storage capacity in 2012. SPSA, as an agency, is due to expire in 2018. So, without more landfill space, the question would become: Where is the more than 1 million tons of trash produced each year in South Hampton Roads supposed to go?

In addition, to win local approval for an expanded landfill, SPSA has pledged to build two new garbage transfer stations in Suffolk, together expected to cost more than $20 million.

Engineers and consultants have been working on the expansion plans for months, though SPSA would not say how much has been spent.

The authority sent the state a notice of intent to seek an environmental permit for an expansion in September.

In its filings since then, SPSA has described how underground wells providing drinking water to a small housing complex were 4,750 feet from the landfill site - about 500 feet closer than the one-mile limit. The application cites the name of the complex as Green Pine Apartments, but the name and location could not be verified.

The rule was enacted to provide residents and the environment additional protection against potential landfill leaks or spills into groundwater supplies, nearby creeks, rivers and reservoirs. Such leaks can include toxic materials.

"We could not recommend approval," Milt Johnston, a state environmental official based in Virginia Beach, said of the SPSA proposal. "The issue, really, is the law. And it really doesn't give much room."

SPSA purchased the 69-acre tract for the landfill project several years ago. Known as Cell VII, the expansion would sit just east of the existing landfill, near the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. It would hold about 7.4 million tons of household and commercial trash - enough space to last through 2018.

When told of the permitting roadblock last week, board members seemed stunned and confused.

"Don't they know this is an expansion? Do they understand that? That we need this facility?" asked Michael Barrett, who represents Virginia Beach on the eight-member board of directors.

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