March 17, 2005

By Matt Kelly

The University will pay up to $2.9 million of remediation costs for the Ivy Landfill.

In an agreement worked out with the City of Charlottesville, Albemarle County and the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority, U.Va. will contribute 7 percent of the roughly $42 million projected cost of cleaning up areas in the landfill that are contaminating ground water. The waste authority operated the landfill, which closed in 2001, and the city and county have seats on the authority’s board.

The city and county are obligated, as the two wholesale customers who used the landfill, to cover the cost of remediation, but the University has voluntarily agreed to assist the process.

“ The University was asked to join the city and county in efforts to ensure the appropriate remediation of the Ivy facility,” said Leonard W. Sandridge Jr., executive vice president and chief operating officer. “Like any good neighbor, we recognize the value of working together to achieve common goals. Our participation represents a long-term investment in this community.”

Audits of the landfill during its operation indicated that approximately 7 percent of the trash there was generated by the University. Charlottesville will pay 33 percent of the cost and the county will contribute 60 percent, said Lonzy “Lonnie” E. Wood, director of finance and administration for the waste authority. The University’s first payment is scheduled for July 1.

Under the agreement, the University has locked in a specific dollar amount for the work, according to Wood, who said the University can pay its share over 30 years, at a cost of $2.9 million, adjusted for inflation, or it can pay $2.2 million in a lump sum in current dollars. Both the city and county have agreed to a percentage, meaning if the costs of the project increases, the amount of their contribution increases.

Organic contaminants have seeped from some of the closed trash cells at the 100-acre facility, Wood said. Remediation work includes drilling wells to map the plumes of contamination and introducing organisms that will degrade organic materials in the trash that are causing the contamination. Wood said active remediation work will take place over the next five to 10 years. Under a plan approved by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality in October 2004, the authority has to monitor the landfill for 30 years to determine the method is working.

The landfill was first licensed in 1968 to the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County. In 1991, the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority was formed and assumed the operation. The authority is operating a trash transfer station at the landfill site.