Supervisors to seek land for trash site

By Erin McGrath

Published: October 22, 2008

The Nelson County Board of Supervisors decided Oct. 14 to make an offer to buy a parcel of land in the Faber area for a manned solid waste collection site and put their consideration of another parcel of land in the Schuyler area on hold.

Supervisors agreed to offer $12,000 per acre to the Cove Valley Recreation Center for two to four acres of land on Virginia 670 in Faber.

North District Supervisor Tommy Harvey said he has been in contact with members of the Cove Valley Recreation Center who own the site and that he believed they would vote to accept the offer.

“This puts the location where we want it to be and it will serve the community very, very well,” Harvey said. “We can get the land with little to no controversy.”

Supervisors also heard an updated report from Massie Saunders, of Saunders’ Surveyors, Inc. in Roseland, on a site they had been considering in Schuyler along Route 617 for the possible manned trash facility.

Saunders said soil and rock samples had been taken and additional topographical work had been done on the site.

He noted that while the location would work, it would come with several problems, like a 36 foot to 38 foot change in elevation along the six acre site.

A cemetery is in the middle of the property with four or more graves dating back to 1908, Saunders said.

“The cemetery is going to present the heart of the problem and in order to work it’s going to have to be dealt with in some fashion,” Saunders said.

Saunders also said only one entrance to the site would be available because of the limited site distance along Route 840.

“I don’t think you could do a full-fledge site at this location because of the restrictions,” Saunders said.

Susan McSwain, coordinator of solid waste and recycling for Nelson County, said putting an abbreviated site in Schuyler with less cans to hold trash would increase traffic at the other manned collection sites in the county.

McSwain said 88 loads of trash were pulled from the county in September, with 28 of those coming from Faber and 15 from Schuyler.

“If you put a site in Schuyler, you would be spending a lot of money for very little trash,” McSwain said.

Saunders told supervisors construction alone for the site would cost somewhere between an estimated $477,473 to $591,021.

Supervisors agreed to put the Schuyler site on hold while more information could be gathered on the removal of the cemetery and an offer could be placed before the Cove Valley Recreation Center.