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You can expect the Green Ridge portion of Tuesday’s meeting to go quickly, but that doesn’t mean any final votes will be taken. The Cumberland Board of Supervisors will meet on Tuesday, May 13 for their regular monthly meeting, but while Green Ridge is on the agenda, it’s just to set a date. 

Specifically, supervisors on Tuesday will just be setting a date for the public hearing, currently expected to be held in June. So nothing else in regards to the Green Ridge application is being decided. 

And yes, Cumberland did just hold a public hearing on this very subject, but that was the planning commission. At each level, a public hearing has to be held before a vote can be taken. The planning commission held a hearing and then voted to recommend rejection of the application. Now before supervisors can vote to adopt or reject the request, they have to do the same. Also, we’ve had people ask why another vote is being taken when the commission recommended rejection.

Regardless of how the planning commission votes on an issue, the case still moves on to go before supervisors. Why? Because planning commissions are advisory groups in Virginia, meaning they can make a recommendation, but it’s up to the county board of supervisors to agree or disagree. And that’s what will take place in June. But first, you have to set a date for the public hearing. 

Some Green Ridge questions and answers

So, to be clear, Green Ridge doesn’t have approval yet for their “initial phase”. That’s what all of this is for, to either approve or reject it. That initial phase would only have 104 acres out of the 1,177 acre site available for active dumping. That’s down from 650 acres in the original plan. 

But that doesn’t mean it would permanently be that size. Right now, Green Ridge doesn’t have the permits needed to build on or disturb wetlands, creeks and streams. Will Shewmake, an attorney with the firm Woods Rogers and representing Green Ridge, said in the Feb. 10 workshop if the company does get those permits, things would expand. 

That expansion would mean a jump from 104 acres to 350 total acres available for garbage disposal. It would also mean a significant increase in the size of the garbage mounds. The current application being considered by Cumberland allows trash to pile up to 140 feet above ground level. If Green Ridge gets to expand, they could go up to 225 feet above ground level. The biggest increase would be in the amount of trash brought in. The current application limits that to 1,500 tons of garbage a day. The expansion would allow them to haul in 3,500 tons per day. It would also increase the number of nearby homes impacted. With this “initial phase”, there are 37 houses within a half mile of the disposal area. With expansion, that would climb to 58 homes. 

But what does that translate to? What would the maximum capacity of this landfill be, District 1 Supervisor Bryan Hamlet asked back in the March 3 joint session. At full build-out, he was told, if everything is approved, it would be 30 million cubic yards. The tons in a cubic yard vary, depending on the density of the material, but the average is roughly 1.65 tons per cubic yard.

What’s in it for Cumberland? 

Another question that has been raised repeatedly is what benefit Cumberland County gets from the property. 

Host fees for the proposal would be a minimum of $640,000 annually, with another $50,000 annually from the machinery, equipment and tools tax. A payment of $25,000 each would be made each year to the county’s Environmental Science Education Program Fund and Recreational Programs Fund. Green Ridge also claimed that they’re “paying” in another way, by allegedly saving Cumberland money through free garbage disposal for all county government facilities. They claim that will save $750,000 each year. 

The company has also laid out what they claim are other ways they’re saving Cumberland residents money. That includes residents using the landfill for free waste disposal, paying for the cost of a county employee, with a $100,000 salary, to monitor the operation and the fact Cumberland would get 25 acres of land to use, once the landfill is decommissioned decades in the future. 

Green Ridge officials also have laid out ways they say they’re being a “good neighbor”. That includes paying $4,271 to buy band uniforms for Cumberland County Public Schools, giving the school district another $60,000 for a scholarship fund, $250,000 to the county to develop new parks, $100,000 to the county to help with public safety, $500,000 to reimburse the county for costs related to rezoning and $500,000 to reimburse Cumberland for costs related to the rezoning process. 

This isn’t the final stage

One more thing to mention. Even if the landfill gets approved by Cumberland County, that’s not the final step. 

In addition to asking Cumberland for a conditional use permit, Green Ridge is going through the Part B process of its state approval process as well. That’s where they go over the design with state officials, along with the liner system, stormwater management, groundwater monitoring, landfill gas management and a post closure plan for down the road. 

Also, what would all those trucks do to Pinegrove Road? The Virginia Department of Transportation will have to sign off on that as well. There’s still several layers of permitting the project would have to go through, before anything would happen.