A move by EnviroSolutions in South County, including Lorton and parts of Fairfax Station and Springfield, to extend the life of its construction debris landfill by 22 years and dramatically increase the facility’s size has led to a growing controversy. The core issue is whether residents can trust the Board of Supervisors to honor and enforce the terms of a past agreement that was made between a corporation, the local community, and the Board of Supervisors.
In 2007 in a hotly contested vote, EnviroSolutions secured the support of the South County Federation, the organization of homeowner associations south of Fort Belvoir, as well as the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors, to increase the height of its Lorton landfill from 290 feet to 412 feet.
To secure that support, EnviroSolutions had to agree to three critical conditions: EnviroSolutions would build trails and a park on top of the new hill, that would become highest point in Fairfax County. It would plant thousands of trees and shrubs on the hill to ensure that the dump became a natural wooded hill. Finally, and most critically, it agreed to a date-certain closing of the landfill on December 31, 2018.
In order to sell the extension proposal as something new, EnviroSolutions has come up with a clever, politically correct transformation of the dump. The company now describes it as a "Green Energy Plan." It proposes installing wind turbines, solar panels, and producing geothermal energy. The reality of this proposal is that the amount of energy produced will be minor, and numerous caveats would enable the company to produce even less than it is promising.
Additionally, bald eagles feed on the dump; there are ten active nests four miles away on Mason Neck, and many more eagles overwinter. Duke Energy recently paid $1,000,000 in fines at two wind farms that killed 16 eagles. Under no circumstance should wind turbines be approved on this site.
At a March 11 community meeting, Sharon Bulova, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, apparently was taken aback by the overwhelming opposition to the EnviroSolutions application, which she has been strongly supporting. She described EnviroSolutions as "our corporate partner." Bulova has received $32,000 in campaign contributions from EnviroSolutions and its lobbyist, eight times more than the next Supervisor.
When the Board of Supervisors approved EnviroSolutions’ application to increase the landfill’s height in 2007, South County residents believed that a compact had been negotiated between the company and the community and secured by the Board of Supervisors. If the Board of Supervisors fails to uphold its earlier decision, every homeowner association in Fairfax County should be concerned that agreements they make could be overturned by a well-financed developer.
This facility is simply an ugly dump unchanged by green energy window-dressing. Nothing in EnviroSolutions’ new application justifies the Board of Supervisors violating its agreement to shut the landfill down on December 31, 2018.
The author is former publisher of the Chronicle Newspapers.