CUMBERLAND – A quarterly report presented to the County's Board of Supervisors last week by Republic Services, again, did not include a timetable for construction on Cumberland County's commercial landfill that is projected for Route 60.

Tim Torrez, representing Republic Services, explained to the Cumberland's Supervisors that Republic is still waiting for the economy to improve before construction begins on the new landfill.

“Trash volumes are down,” he explained to the Supervisors. “This has been the story for a year now so next year we'll see how it will pick up…”

Supervisor Bill Osl, District One, asked Torrez if the landfill industry had started to see improvements in the volume numbers?

“Not really,” he said about the reality that construction projects are also down due to the state of the economy. “Last year the DEQ report was down seven percent overall and out-of-state trash was down by…19 percent. Things are still on a down slope, unfortunately.”

According to Torrez, commercial and construction waste is down, which curbs the need to open additional landfills.

Although work is not actually underway at the site, Republic Services has received approval on its Wetlands Mitigation Plan by the Army Corps of Engineers and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) this summer, according to Torrez.

“So all of the wetlands hurdles are behind us,” he said. “We are currently working with Andy (Sorrell) on the site plan approval. He pretty much has given us the blessing on the site plan but there are a couple of things we owe him…”

Andrew Sorrell, Cumberland's planning and zoning administrator, has been reviewing the landfill's site plan regarding buffers along The Woods subdivision and other conditional use permit requirements.

“Part of that was the Operations Manual that just needs to be submitted to the County and reviewed again by us before we submit it,” Torrez continued to explain about the conditions.

Related to the air permit that has yet to be received, according to Torrez it does not have to be issued until one year after construction actually begins.

“There really is no need to submit the Title V Air Permit at this time. All of the applications have been drafted and (are) ready to submit,” he said.

Groundwater monitoring is also continuing at the site.

“We did a June event and an August event and so now we have two more events to establish the background data before we can actually open,” he noted about the monitoring process.

Republic Services also participated in the County's clean up day in June, which allowed for citizens the opportunity to dispose of many tires and electronics.

“I think it was a big success and it went very well and we look forward to the one next year,” he said.