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The stage is set for trash barges that will bring nearly 2 million tons of out-of-state trash to Virginia every year. Date published: 10/12/2003
Barges will soon bring thousands of tons daily AS A NEW ERA of trash barging approaches, the true volume and impact of the amounts of garbage to be absorbed by Virginia landfills is coming into focus. And it becomes even clearer how powerless Virginia is to regulate the amount of trash it imports. Exactly when Waste Management Inc. will begin to barge out-of-state trash up the James River to Charles City County is uncertain. But when it starts, there will be a daily high tide of garbage floating in. The permit for which Waste Management has applied and which will probably be granted would allow it to import 6,000 tons per day at the new dock built for that purpose at Shirley Plantation. Most, if not all, of it would then be moved along State Route 106 in Charles City County to the landfill 12 miles north. With truckloads of an estimated 20 tons each, that's 300 trips up and 300 back along that stretch of two-lane road every day. Need more perspective? If these trips took place over a 10-hour workday, and you stood somewhere along that road, a truck would pass one way or the other every minute during that period--600 trips over 600 minutes. Consider this as well: Waste Management is no doubt arranging a trash strategy that involves the other dumps it operates, including the King George County landfill. Since its Charles City County landfill is permitted to accept a maximum of 6,000 tons a day, the same amount coming off the daily barges, other trash that now arrives there by truck, including Virginia's own trash, will have to go somewhere else. King George maybe? As Jim Sharp, director of the anti-trash-import group Campaign Virginia, put it: "I'm sure they'll find a place for all the imports and local trash."
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