Illegal dump’s cleanup ‘smooth’

The owner of an Albemarle County orchard where authorities found an illegal dump plans to have a second site of old orchard equipment cleaned up in the coming weeks.
Rob Heide, the county’s manager of zoning enforcement, said Henry Chiles has been cooperating with the county in cleaning up the old farm equipment. Huff Chiles, a partner in Crown Orchard Co., said the cleanup effort has been slowed by recent rains but will continue.

“Everything is going real smooth and we’re working with whoever we need to,” Huff Chiles said.
In April, the state’s Department of Environmental Quality investigated an illegal dump on three-quarters of an acre on Crown Orchard Road. The site, which was home to bags of trash, propane tanks and old home appliances, has since been cleaned up.
County officials asked the orchard owner to remove old farm equipment from a second site found during officials’ investigations. Heide said no completion date has been set.
“Because of the volume of equipment, it’s going to take a while,” Heide said. “Looking over the pictures, there seems to be a pretty significant amount collected over the years.”

The DEQ has only been involved in investigating the large, illegal dump. Graham Simmerman, the DEQ’s regional waste manager, said the orchard is supposed to have a lab test done on a nearby stream and pond for any signs of environmental damage caused by the waste.
Simmerman said he thinks the trash was piling up for years. The orchard cleared about 70 tons of debris from the site, which had waste piled as high as 8 feet.
According to a notice of violation that the county sent to Henry Chiles, some of the trash at the illegal dump looked like it was burned and pushed into a nearby stream that may have been used in the orchard’s irrigation system. The county has since dropped the violation.
Simmerman said the DEQ believes the waste may have come from a cleanup effort in the housing that the orchard offers for its migrant workers and was exacerbated by others.

“Once there is one bag of trash on the side of the road, it becomes a magnet for other people who want to dump stuff,” Simmerman said. “Trash fees in Albemarle County are the highest in the area, so I think people are trying to save money and doing their own dumping.”
Simmerman said he thinks Crown Orchard will be fined for the dump, but he said he didn’t know the amount.
Authorities found a third dump on the orchard’s property, although the county determined that it was not a zoning violation. The site was used to dump old fruit and lime used in cold storage, Simmerman said. Although the DEQ does not regulate such sites without a complaint, Simmerman said the DEQ has talked to the orchard about composting the fruit or sending it off site.