Campbell Co. landfill clean up high cost

The legal battle over groundwater contamination coming from Campbell County’s landfill has been in the spotlight for months, but in the background, the county has spent millions of dollars to clean up the mess.

Since the contamination was discovered in 2002, the county has spent slightly more than $3 million to clean the groundwater and control gases coming from the landfill. The two problems, Campbell County public works director Clif Tweedy said, are somewhat related.

It will take years, possibly decades, to bring the groundwater contamination under control, and each year the county will have to spend more than $200,000 for testing and required reports, Tweedy said.

Information obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request shows the largest chunk of the money spent on the cleanup was $1.25 million to build a groundwater extraction and treatment system in 2005.

The groundwater contamination spread to the 160-acre Twin Oaks mobile home park owned by Claude “Butch” and Virginia Royal. The Royals sued the county in 2005 and 2006 after learning in 2002 of the pollution.

This fall a jury awarded the couple $9 million in damages. The county said last week it would appeal the award to the state Supreme Court, a process that likely will take about a year. Since the pollution was discovered, the county has spent $1.2 million in legal expenses.

During the fall trial, the Royals’ lawyer said the property and

business was worth about $6 million and the family lost about $1 million holding down rent charges and $2 million from the loss of their use of groundwater.

The county argued that the Royals had clean drinking water on their property and were able to switch tenants to clean wells right after contamination was discovered. The county also argued it offered to provide public water access for years, largely at the county’s expense.

The Royals said the offers were made in exchange for giving up claims against the county, and that the pollution left the property uninsurable and created a high liability risk.

That pollution includes a mixture of chemicals called volatile organic compounds, which are common in municipal landfills. They come from a variety of household and industrial sources such as cleaning supplies or car fluids.

Department of Environmental Quality regional deputy director Dave Miles described the mix as “indicator pollutants associated with municipal solid waste.”

The chemicals, which include benzene and vinyl chloride, can cause cancer or other health problems.

As part of the clean-up process, the county installed a groundwater extraction system, which pumps water out of 24 wells. The water is then piped to an area where air is blown through, forcing the small amount of chemicals to evaporate. That water is then released into a tiny stream flowing through county-owned property. The system was approved by DEQ several years ago.

On average, the system pulls between 900,000 and 1 million gallons of water from the ground per month, Tweedy said. “We think it’s a lot, but it’s a fairly big area.”

Since starting the extraction system, which includes wells surrounding the north part of the leaking landfill section as well as wells on private property, the amount of certain chemicals has declined significantly, while others have stayed near the original amount, county records show.

In fiscal 2010, the county will spend $144,000 for monitoring and testing the leaking section of the landfill, which was closed and capped in the mid-1990s, Tweedy said. The county also has to spend $97,000 a year to test how the extraction system is working.

In comparison, the county spends $50,000 a year to monitor a newer part of the landfill, which currently is dormant while all trash is sent to the landfill in Lynchburg for several years under a regional agreement that began in 2008.

Because cleaning up the pollution will take years, Tweedy said, the county will need to have people on staff to address a number of regulatory issues.

“We want to do what’s right. We want to clean this up. We want to be sure the health and safety of the citizens is protected. We have spent a lot of money to try to do that,” Tweedy said.

“We’ll continue to spend money and do things and as DEQ gives us more direction, we’re going to continue to add to and improve the system with the goal of cleaning it up as fast as we can and preventing it from being a problem in the future.”