County has limited luck fighting dumps

The swift cleanup of an illegal dump spanning almost an acre near Batesville stands in sharp contrast to other battles Albemarle County has waged against illegal dumping, and highlights the difficulties localities face in policing waste sites in rural areas.

Officials estimate 60 percent to 70 percent of the 252 documented Albemarle zoning ordinance violations in 2008, for example, were related to accumulation of trash and debris. Offenses could include anything from a small accumulation of tires and household trash to large-scale dumping.

Fred Gerke, president of the Proffit Community Association, said that he’s been working to have property on Proffit Road cleaned but with little luck. Junk cars, as well as scrap metal and automotive parts, fill the backyard of property near Gerke’s home, he said.

Gerke and his neighbor, Seth Cassaday, say that the site is an eyesore and lessens their home values. And they fear that the wastes could damage their water quality.

While officials are investigating his complaint, he said, the cleanup is moving slowly. Illegal dumping investigations can become protracted matters, though the latest high-profile illegal dump, at Crown Orchard near Batesville, was cleaned up remarkably quickly.

At that site, at least 69 tons of garbage, piled as high as 8 feet in places and spread across nearly an acre, was removed within about two weeks of being spotted by state Department of Environmental Quality investigators. Officials applauded the property owner, Henry Chiles, for removing the garbage so quickly.

Pat Napoleon, however, spent years trying to get a sprawling dump in Cismont removed.

‘Bad memories’

The discovery of the Batesville dump “brings back a lot of bad memories from what we went through,” said Napoleon, who used to live near the dumpsite. “We were beating our heads against the wall for years with this dump.”

For decades, metal, trash, tires and other debris piled up behind a house in Cismont, eventually covering 16 acres. It wasn’t until last year that the mess was fully cleaned up, after the owners spent three years rejuvenating the property, according to local officials.

Albemarle Supervisor Kenneth C. Boyd, who represents the area, said that neighbors had long complained about the mess but initially county officials “somehow made the misinterpretation that it was a grandfathered site.”

But after the garbage caught fire twice, the county shifted positions, Boyd said.

“Boy, the people in Keswick were all up in arms about it,” Boyd said. “They were concerned about impacts on the water supply up there.”

Though officials say waste sites regularly sprout up throughout the county, many complaints are about a small amount of unflattering junk in neighbors’ yards.

For example, Boyd said, the county received complaints about other property near the Cismont dump, but the severity of the problem was questionable.

“These people had all sorts of junk in their front yard,” Boyd said. “Now, how do you classify that? Is that a dump, because a guy’s got a freezer on his front porch and a refrigerator out there? … It was just sloppy people that kept a lot of stuff around.”

In some cases, however, the rules are obvious in county code. Albemarle residents generally are not allowed to leave more than two inoperable vehicles in their yards, for example.

“I was talking to a farmer the other day who said, ‘Well, you know, the reason we keep what people might call old tractors … is because we use them for parts,’” Boyd said.

Jed Pascarella, an environmental program planner for DEQ, said that illegal dumps are a problem in rural localities throughout Virginia. State and local investigators say they rely largely on complaints from residents to determine which suspicious sites might be worth inspecting.

Swift response

Rob Heide, an Albemarle zoning enforcement manager, said that when county inspectors receive calls about large dumps or ones that could pose imminent threats to public safety or the environment, investigations are launched almost immediately. Smaller, less serious violations are usually inspected within 10 business days, he said.

However, Napoleon contends that problems continue to flourish partially because people ignore their neighbors’ wastes.

“I feel like the cycle should be broken,” Napoleon said. “And I feel like, if people are in denial, that won’t happen.”

She said that officials ought to be more proactive in their efforts to find illegal waste sites, suggesting Albemarle officials consider inspecting county properties using helicopters.

Heide said the only time the county searches for illegal waste sites using helicopters is when there’s no other way to access the property, such as when residents refuse to let investigators on the property.

“As far as just randomly flying over the county looking for stuff, I don’t know how much of a realistic tactic that would be,” Heide said. “I mean Albemarle is huge, so flying in such a manner that you could see and identify things would be quite an undertaking and an expense.”

Others have suggested officials search for illegal dumps using Google Maps, which allows Internet users to locate properties simply by typing in an address; from there, viewers can zoom in and have bird’s-eye views.

But there’s no guarantee the images are recent, and the pictures are frequently unclear.

“Unless you have specific information, more than just a surface photo,” Pascarella said, “we would be spending an incredible amount of manpower going out there … chasing down sites that didn’t really have a significant impact.”

So, investigators often find themselves depending largely on residents to inform them about potential problems.

Tricky situation

Boyd said that once illegal dumps are identified, determining how to resolve the matter can be tricky. Such was the case in Cismont, he said.

“It was a thorn in my side for years, mainly because I was put in between,” Boyd said. “Some neighbors were really pushing me to just come down on this family — for the county to clean it up and just take the property from [the owners].”

However, Boyd said that wasn’t the best solution, because the DEQ determined that the waste didn’t pose an imminent threat and the property owners, as well as their children and grandchildren, dedicated many of their nights and weekends to cleaning up the site.

The property owners were required to pay for water samplings at neighbors’ wells, Boyd said, and the tests indicated that the water was safe.

Chiles, the owner of Crown Orchard, also will be required to finance tests of surface water to find out if it’s polluted, according to the DEQ. Items that were found at that dump include automotive parts, propane tanks, Freon tanks and other garbage, according to a notice of violation the county sent to Chiles.

“The trash appears to be burned and then pushed toward a nearby stream, which feeds into a pond that appears to be an irrigation source for the orchard,” the notice states.

The county’s two violations issued against Chiles have been dropped. The massive dump has already been cleaned, and Chiles said he’d begin removing junk at another site on his property within 30 days, according to officials.

Officials say their initial objective is to get violators to voluntarily clean their garbage, but imposing fines and seeking courts orders are backup plans.