CHESAPEAKE

SPSA, the regional waste authority, announced some good news Wednesday: Its landfill expansion project in Suffolk, necessary to store tons of garbage through the next decade, is back on track - sort of.

The $22 million project, known as Cell VII, hit a wall two months ago when Virginia environmental officials said a state rule barring landfills within one mile of drinking-water supplies had put the expansion in jeopardy.

But Wednesday, the Southeastern Public Service Authority released a letter from the state Department of Environmental Quality that says the rule does not affect the Suffolk project after all.

In the letter, DEQ Director David K. Paylor said the expansion site is downstream of the water supply in question, at the Green Pines Motel East, and that the rule is concerned only with landfills that are upstream of drinking-water sources.

Expansion plans in Suffolk, Paylor concluded, "will not run afoul of this prohibition so long as other requirements... are met."

At the same time, however, another environmental snag surfaced.

For its approval of the project, Suffolk told SPSA that it wants two garbage transfer stations built in the city, costing about $20 million.

Turns out that one of the preferred sites, in the northern part of Suffolk, includes too many wetlands, "making the site useless" for development, said John Hadfield, SPSA's executive director.

That means SPSA and the city will go back to the drawing board and seek a new site, Hadfield said, predicting only a minor delay in the process.

The expansion project is planned on 69 acres, just east of the existing regional landfill in Suffolk.

It should hold 7.4 million tons of household and commercial trash - enough to last for about six years, from 2012 to 2018, officials have said.

Both dates are important: 2012 is when the existing landfill is expected to run out of space; 2018 is when SPSA is scheduled to cease to exist as an agency.

SPSA bought the expansion site in 2002 for $3.6 million, according to an agency spokeswoman.

To compensate for destroying wetlands on the site, SPSA must protect 90 acres of these ecologically important features, said Tony Thiel, an attorney for the agency.

SPSA has received approval for its compensation plan from the state but still is awaiting word from the Army Corps of Engineers, which also regulates wetlands, Thiel said.

The expansion site is about 4,750 feet from the Green Pines Motel East on Portsmouth Boulevard in Suffolk - 500 feet closer than the one-mile state limit allows.

But the site is downstream of the hotel. So if a spill or leak were to occur, contaminants would not flow toward the drinking supply; indeed, they would go in the opposite direction, SPSA has argued.

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