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groundwater. Despite the reassurance about the fishing hole next to :he landfill (in the editorial), recent nistory suggests that landfills are probably all going to leak and fail sooner or later. Some of the supposedly best-designed federal hazardous waste landfills have failed very recently.
In addition, this fine ash will disperse in the wind as it is being lumped at the landfill site, creating in airborne health hazard, and regional soil contamination. There is a ;ood possibility that incinerator ash may be declared by the EPA to be Hazardous waste, as one state has already done. This would boost the :osts of disposal tremendously, requiring the ash to be placed in a hazardous waste facility, of which there are currently none in Virginia.
Rappahannock faces many of the same choices as cities and counties all over. As elsewhere, a comprehensive recycling program should become an important part of our considerations. Most of what goes into a landfill is nonsense - it can be eliminated, reused, recycled in many different ways. A sophisticated waste management program that emphasizes advances in recycling techniques and technologies will mean lower waste management costs, a dramatic increase in lifespan of the landfill and should keep out and divert to other solutions the locallygenerated hazardous wastes that figure strongly in groundwater contamination in numerous cases.
Finding the best site for a landfill is only the first step. To protect public health and the environment, and to reduce costs of waste disposal, we need to begin now to develop a comprehensive waste management program for the county.
DAVID CHUSE
Rock Mills
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