Location sought for Faber, Schuyler waste

By Erin McGrath

Published: August 27, 2008

Once more, trash is on the menu.

The Nelson County Board of Supervisors will again discuss the location of a solid waste collection facility in the Faber and Schuyler area of Nelson tonight at their 7:30 p.m. meeting.

This discussion follows an Aug. 10 town hall meeting at the Faber Volunteer Rescue Squad building, where more than 50 residents from the Faber and Schuyler areas voiced opinions about it.

Central District Supervisor Connie Brennan and East District Supervisor Allen Hale took comments and answered questions for two hours that night.

“All of us are here to try and do the right thing,” Brennan said. “There are rarely situations we have that have a perfect solution.”

Previously, the county tried to obtain a 6.8-acre property along Bunny Hill Lane in Faber for the site. The owner, Hazel T. Bell, rejected the county’s offer of $125,000 last week.

The county also considered property owned by Cove Valley Recreation Center, along Cove Valley Lane in Faber, but has not received further input from the organization, County Administrator Steve Carter said.

Brennan said the purpose of last week’s meeting was to get public input on the currently proposed sites and other available properties.

“What we’d like is to have your help in coming up with other sites,” Brennan said. “We’re just about at our wits’ end.”

Those at the meeting suggested a half-dozen sites in the Faber and Schuyler areas. Brennan and Hale said they would take residents’ suggestions back to the other board members.

Hale said he had worked on the solid waste problem in Nelson County since he was elected and looked at dozens of sites for this area. He said they wanted a site in Faber, closer to U.S. 29, because that would serve the greatest number of residents with the least amount of cost to the county, and the cost of hauling trash from the site to the landfill was a factor.

The overall opinion in the room was that Faber residents did not want the collection facility at the site on Bunny Hill Lane or Cove Valley Lane, and those in Schuyler wanted it where the open-top Dumpsters are now along Rockfish River Road.