The Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved amendments to the joint Prince Edward/Cumberland Solid Waste Management Plan on Tuesday during the board’s regular April meeting, allowing Cumberland County to proceed with the proposed Green Ridge landfill project.

The summary in the board meeting packet stated, “In order for the Green Ridge landfill project to proceed, Prince Edward County must adopt/approve the amended document.”

During Tuesday’s meeting, Prince Edward County Administrator Wade Bartlett explained what led Prince Edward to this point.

“What’s happened is that Cumberland County is requesting that Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors approve amendments to the joint Prince Edward/Cumberland Solid Waste Management Plan,” he said. “We’ve been in this together for quite some time. Cumberland approved the proposed amendment at its Feb. 12, 2019 meeting.”

He noted that the document included in the board meeting packet contained all of the changes approved by Cumberland.

“The need to amend the document was to remove the Allied/Republic landfill as a solid waste disposal option and to replace that facility with the proposed Green Ridge facility,” the board meeting packet summary cited. “The Allied/Republic facility will not be constructed. The company has gone so far as to contact DEQ (Virginia Department of Environmental Quality) to surrender their part A and part B permits for the construction of the landfill.”

The summary also highlighted that Cumberland had to hold a public hearing prior to approving the amendments, while Prince Edward does not.

“Per section 9 VAC 20-130-130 of the Virginia Administrative Code, when a Solid Waste Management Plan includes multiple localities, the locality submitting a major plan amendment only has to conduct a public hearing in the county involved in the major amendment,” the summary stated.

Bartlett said at the meeting, “While we were looking at the plan, I ran through it and looked at our part of it and made a few what I would term minor amendments, and those you can see are, one, amending chapter four to reflect the county now operates seven conveniences centers, not six when this was first adopted; the county no longer recycles any glass; the tires and white goods are collected at all of the convenience sites, before they were only collected at the landfill; that we have more landfill cells that we’ve constructed; E, the county now operates the landfill instead of having a contractor; and F, the county’s fund balance is larger than what it was when this was originally adopted.”

“Also, I amended parts of chapter five that state the site life is based on updated data — with the landfill before it was data that was very old,” he continued. “And I recommended we amend chapter seven to eliminate the sentence stating the county pledged to operate a convenience site in Pamplin. One time we looked for a site, but we were unable to find land to locate that, and we’ve abandoned that plan. But those are all considered minor plan amendments and don’t require a public hearing prior to approval by our board.”