About an hour west of Virginia’s capital city, and east of Lynchburg, the start of Virginia’s Appalachian portion, Cumberland County sits about as close to the center of the state’s Piedmont as it gets.
It’s a rural county with rolling landscapes, known for its agricultural and forestry economy. Down the main strip of U.S. 60 sit two types of dollar stores, a hardware and auto shop, a local restaurant, a coffee shop and a few other establishments.
Preserving that character has become a rallying cry for residents who oppose a yearslong plan to build a 1,143-acre landfill in the eastern part of the county, citing concerns about groundwater, light and noise pollution.
The county initially approved the project in 2018 to have about 500 acres for disposal. Over the years, developer GFL Environmental reduced the footprint of the Green Ridge Recycling and Disposal Facility to an initial 104 acres. But the project, which has yet to break ground, is still drawing the ire of residents, who are speaking out against several provisions in the developer’s host agreement with the county.
Among them: a so-called frustration clause, which is intended to prevent the county from doing anything to harm the project’s process for approval. There’s also a property value assurance program that prevents participants from voicing opposition to the project, and an attempt to outright buy a neighboring property that’s at risk of well contamination.
The property value assurance program “looks like ‘shut up’ money to me,” said Muriel Branch, president of the AMMD Pine Grove Project, a group that is working to preserve the nearby Rosenwald-built Pine Grove School. A network of these schools was built in the Jim Crow era of segregation by Julius Rosenwald, former president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and Booker T. Washington of the Tuskegee Institute to give Black people an education.
Residents have come out in force to speak against the project, which had a seven-year deadline to begin building from when the county approved the original project in June 2018 but faced COVID delays and challenges with obtaining a federal U.S. Army Corps permit to mitigate the impact to wetlands in the area.
The company has since downsized the initial proposal to avoid those wetlands and the need to move a historic road used to access Pine Grove School. Now the company is seeking a new conditional-use permit that would allow for future expansions and last indefinitely with no construction deadlines.
Elizabeth Myers, chairperson of a local opposition group called Cumberland County Landfill Alert, or CCLA, expressed frustration of her own when dealing with the board of supervisors.
“We have been after them to listen to us, the people. They just sit up there like bumps on a log, sometimes,” said Myers. “It just gets so discouraging.”
The company touts its environmental protections, community contributions and economic benefits to the tune of $1.5 million annually for the county, through a combination of host fees, tax revenues, annual payments and $750,000 in fee disposal savings for county residents.
“All of Green Ridge’s contributions to the community come from a commitment to be a good corporate citizen,” Jay Smith, a spokesperson for Green Ridge Recycling & Disposal Facility, said in an email. “And we don’t believe we should wait until we’re open to be a good corporate citizen. We started making donations prior to the initial approval in 2018, and continued with supporting the community after the project was approved. And that commitment to support the community will continue long after the revised, smaller project is approved.”
The tensions boiled ahead of a public hearing scheduled for June 10 to approve or deny the project before it moves on to a state permitting process. But just days ahead of the hearing, the county postponed the meeting. The agenda for the next public hearings, scheduled for Tuesday, doesn’t include the landfill.
County Administrator Derek Stamey did not respond to a request for comment for this article. The news alert issued to announce the meeting’s postponement said, “Negotiations related to the Conditional Use Permit and Host Agreement between Green Ridge and the counsel for Cumberland County are ongoing and will continue until a future public hearing date is determined.”
The frustration clause
Some residents believe that language in a host agreement signed by the previous board of supervisors has spooked any opposition from county officials to the point of being afraid of a lawsuit if the county denies the project.
Embedded in the 28-page agreement, which sets terms for how the county and company would interact during the project’s 30-year lifespan, is the frustration clause under section 3.5, which details “Permits and Approvals.”
“The County will take no action intended to frustrate or prevent Green Ridge from receiving and maintaining a permit and approvals that are consistent with the applicable ordinance and zoning, including any conditional use permits,” subsection (b) states.
The next sentence goes on to say, “Provided however, nothing herein shall be construed to require the Board of Supervisors to exercise any legislative function in favor of Green Ridge.”
Email and phone message requests for comments left with the five board members — Bryan Hamlet, John Newman, Eureka Tyree, Paul Stimpson III and Robert Saunders Jr. — were not returned.
Ron Tavernier, a former District 2 supervisor who lost reelection in 2023, said in an interview that the clause “puts us under a bind to work for [Green Ridge], which is not what our local government should do.”
In 2020, after running on a platform of fighting the landfill, he brought up the host agreement with the other supervisors, he said, but they “shushed me up. They didn’t want nothing to do with it, because they were concerned about being sued.”
Then “word got out” that he’d spoken with his constituents about the landfill, Tavernier said, and he received a July 9, 2020, cease and desist letter from Green Ridge’s attorney claiming that “he has likewise repeatedly, vociferously, and publicly voiced his opposition to the project after becoming a Cumberland County supervisor.
“Supervisor Tavernier’s statements and actions are outrageous, and not consistent with paragraph 3.5(b) of the Host Agreement,” the letter stated.
Patrick McSweeney of Powhatan, the attorney for the CCLA group opposing the project, responded with an opinion letter stating Tavernier’s actions “do not violate” the host agreement, while citing First Amendment protections, which the former supervisor said he couldn’t exercise.
“I looked up the word frustration, it’s got a heck of a definition,” Tavernier said. “Basically, we couldn’t do anything in any way that would be detrimental to them, in their opinion. I could not express my concerns and, on my First Amendment rights, I could not express concerns with my constituents, nor fight for them. It was an extremely, extremely debilitating effort on their behalf.”
Environmental groups have weighed in on the clause, saying it puts pressure on supervisors to act favorably toward the project.
“In reality what it is is just a veiled threat of suit. That is another way of saying we have you hostage, there’s nothing you can do about it,” said Tim Cywinski, communications director for the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club. “The threat of suit is sometimes scarier to decision-makers than the actual negative impacts of any polluting projects.”
The plans not to move Pine Grove Road is not part of responding to community concerns, but part of downsizing the project to avoid the wetland impacts and the need for what could’ve been a costly federal Army Corps permit, he added.
In an April 18 letter sent to the board of supervisors members, Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney Carroll Courtenay, Preservation Virginia CEO Will Glasco and Branch wrote, “the County has the authority — and duty to its residents — to review this CUP [conditional-use permit] application closely and act on it independently.”
Green Ridge claims the frustration clause is “common language” in “drawn out regulatory approvals.”
“It is counterproductive to any development project that a county approves, to then have that county oppose the project they approved and from which the County is receiving financial benefits,” said Smith.
As for not moving Pine Grove Road, Smith stood by that decision being a “huge concession” in response to community concerns and said it’s “not true” that it was made to avoid the need for the Army Corps permit. When the landfill expands, the road will still not move and if wetlands would be impacted, the company will have to go back to the Army Corps, Smith said.
“When it became apparent that it would take longer to do the Army Corps process, not because we didn’t think we’d get approved, that made us reconsider what the initial phase would be,” Smith said, also dismissing thoughts of wanting to generate revenue before building a larger landfill. “We need landfill capacity, we need to get going.”
Property assurance
A separate provision in the host agreement, known as the Property Values Assurance Program, includes what residents are referring to as a buy-out program by paying for their silence.
The program works by determining a base value of property surrounding the proposed landfill site after the project gets going. The values are adjusted on a yearly basis. When a property is sold, if the transaction took longer than six months, and the land goes for less than those recorded values, Green Ridge commits to making up the difference to a cap of 15% of the recorded value.
Included in the terms and calculations of the contract is language that states, “The Participant acknowledges and agrees that he or she shall not oppose in any way the permitting, development, construction or operation of the Landfill so long as the Landfill is in martial compliance with the Host Community Agreement and all Local, State and Federal laws and regulations.”
“I just felt like that was their effort to buy me off and pay me off to silence me,” said Mike Setaro, treasurer with CCLA. “I said, I’d rather not take the money and fight, because it just seems like it goes against the core of being American. It’s like saying you can’t own a gun, or you don’t have freedom of speech if you’re paid off.”
Several properties surrounding the potential Green Ridge site are not listed as eligible for the program, and there’s no clear explanation why the limited number of properties are eligible. But the ones that are, Setaro said, belong to the people who are most likely to be impacted by the project and who would want to speak out. People living around the landfill are also least likely to have the means to move compared to more affluent parts of the county, said Setaro, who added he’s considering leaving if the landfill goes in.
He’s concerned, he said, that the liner will leak and property values will be reduced. “The traffic, the smell, all the negative impact is greatly put on the person that lives in close proximity, but the [lower tax] benefits [are] across the entire county,” he said. “It’s unequitable. It’s unfair.”
In a previous interview, Smith told Cardinal News half the people eligible for the program signed up. In response to a follow-up question for a list that is to be maintained by the company and the county administrator, per the program’s terms, he declined to provide the list to protect the privacy of participants.
Cardinal News submitted a Freedom of Information Act request with the county for the list, but the FOIA officer said the one page was exempt from release under attorney-client privilege.
Knocks on doors to some of the eligible properties found David and Elaine Toth, who live about 2.5 miles from the proposed site on a several-acre parcel with a grass-filled lawn, a barn and a back porch attached to their home. They were not supportive of the program.
“It was really a stupid program,” said David Toth, 74. “Say this house sets for $300,000. The landfill came in and I wanted to sell it, so I put it on the market — 300 [thousand], 325 [thousand]. Had no takes for six months, so I finally sold it at 225 [thousand]. I’ve lost basically $75,000.”
Because of the percentage Green Ridge would pay up to, Toth said, doing rough math off the top of his head, “even if they gave me … 40 [thousand], I’m still $60,000 in the hole.”
With horses on his property that rely on well water and an inability to put “70 gallons of water in a tank” for them, Toth added he’s concerned over potential impacts to the water table, which is the collection of groundwater that feeds local wells.
“My main concern is out here, polluting the water and getting my horse sick,” said Elaine Toth, 73.
Jay and Janie Franklin, who live a few miles farther west from the Toths on Brown Road, said they were offered the program, agreed to it but then were told they weren’t eligible for the first phase of the project.
“They sent paperwork, said you couldn’t [fight it] if you were going to be part of that buyout thing,” said Janie Franklin, 66. “When it started, right away, we said, ‘We’re not staying here.’ We were going to sell. I did not want to be here with that. That was upsetting, very upsetting.”
But Jay Franklin, 56, who grew up in Cumberland, prevailed in keeping the two in the countryside despite the proposal being “such a shock because it was just all at once. ‘Hey, dump’s coming.’”
Along with a concern for their wells — since “everything is downhill from the dump, it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out” — Jay Franklin added he’s concerned about the potential for light and noise pollution.
“We love sitting outside or sitting out back here, looking at the stars. You would not believe how many stars are in the sky when you’re away from the city lights,” Jay Franklin said. “If there’s a landfill right there, we’re going to lose all that.”
Green Ridge said the purpose of the program “is to demonstrate our confidence that we will not adversely affect property values.”
“This is not a regulatory requirement of landfills, but one that we offered,” Smith said.
Buying property
The county relies on well water for residents, but Green Ridge’s attorney, William Shewmake, stated at last month’s planning commission meeting that leakage into the groundwater could impact “exactly one well.” The company offered to buy that property, but the owner said the offer was too low.
Ronald Gregory, 58, who lives in that property on Pine Grove Road, said the company offered $80,000.
“That’s not going to do anything,” said Gregory, adding that the place belonged to his father before him and is already paid off. He’d have to start his life over with his son and a friend who live with him after his wife died, he said.
“That’s not appealing,” he added, of the potential economic activity in the region since he already has a job, which is driving a box truck making deliveries for Amazon warehouses.
“Don’t just throw the garbage on top of my head,” Gregory said, also raising a concern over animals gravitating to the area around landfill. “I don’t like it. Can’t do nothing about it. Don’t have no money to fight back. I’m just a taxpayer.”
Smith disputed his claim, saying the offer was given to Gregory’s father in the amount of $100,000 in 2019 and met with no counteroffer. The offer, Smith said, was based on a fair market value, which can be different from assessment values, like the $112,000 assessment Cumberland County online records show now.
“All property values have increased since the landfill project was approved and that is consistent with our statements that the landfill, especially one like this that is a double-composite lined system and that does not accept sludge, will not adversely affect property values,” Smith said. “If the property at 263 Pinegrove Road now has a fair market value greater than Green Ridge’s previous offer to purchase, this simply reflects that the approved landfill has not affected property values.”
Smith added that groundwater in this area flows less than 10 feet per year, meaning that “a hypothetical release from the landfill would take 100 years to reach that well.
“Such a hypothetical release would be detected by the groundwater monitoring well network on site and would be addressed long before reaching the private well,” Smith said.
Similarly, Branch said their group was offered money for work on the school.
“Accepting the gift would have meant ‘obligation,’ to cool down our opposition, even if was unspoken,” said Branch in an email. “Call us cynical, but corporate America doesn’t just dish out money unless there is something in it for them. Our skepticism, then, as based on the property agreement and our belief that there are no free lunches.”
Green Ridge said that it did offer support to the school project but that “those offers have been rejected. Green Ridge will not inhibit any future plans that may be planned for the area.
“Unlike the periodic clear cutting that takes place on the property today, our landfill will preserve a wooded buffer and prevent the landfill disposal area from being seen from the school,” Smith said.