County responds to Town attack on its methods in dealing with sewage dumping allegation

There was a two-pronged attack against County officials at Monday’s (April 26) Front Royal Town Council meeting regarding the Warren County Sheriff’s Office preventing a Town Solid Waste crew from dumping treated sewage at the Bentonville Transfer Station the previous Tuesday, April 20.

First, during his council member report Jacob Meza, who was in full attack mode on a number of fronts Monday, berated Sheriff Mark Butler, his department and county administrative staff for “harassment” of a Town Solid Waste work crew at the County’s Bentonville Waste Transfer Station. Next during the mayor’s report, Chris Holloway jumped on the bandwagon, calling the incident and related County actions “appalling”.

Where there’s smoke there’s fire? – There may be another fire call to Town Hall to put out the fire of outrage of some town officials at a recent incident at the County’s Waste Transfer Station involving a Town Solid Waste Department crew. Royal Examiner File Photos/Roger Bianchini unless otherwise indicated

After stating he had been excited and optimistic about past indications of Town-County municipal cooperation, Meza said, “I was dismayed to hear last Tuesday, uh … what I would consider harassment by a law enforcement agency, the sheriff’s department, of our town staff.”

Meza wondered why first contact between the municipalities over the issue of what the Town was dumping at the County Waste Transfer Station was between county law enforcement and a town work crew, as opposed to between administrative, elected or law enforcement personnel – “anybody” Meza offered before describing what he felt was undue harshness in county law enforcement’s interaction with the town waste disposal crew:

“Last Tuesday three of our crew members on our sanitation truck were greeted at the landfill by the sheriff’s department. And not just the sheriff’s department, but Sheriff Mark Butler himself, waiting to surprise our staff while they were making our normal run to empty their truck, and they confronted them.” Of that confrontation, Meza said, “Confront them by getting them out of the truck, threatening arrest, threatening to take away their license to operate the vehicles, threatening them with a $25,000 fines, all for the sake of supposedly dumping sludge at the landfill.

“This is unacceptable,” Meza concluded of the law enforcement-town staff interaction.

It’s a long haul from Front Royal to Bentonville, and eventually Page County – but what is being hauled to Bentonville and how has recently become a matter of concern between the county and town governments.

After Meza’s assessment, the mayor weighed in during his report. After noting that County Board Chairman Cheryl Cullers had been told the Town was dumping “sludge” at the transfer station, leading to first, Interim County Administrator Ed Daley being informed of the allegation, which was then passed on to Sheriff Butler, Mayor Holloway said, “And they set up a, I guess you could call it, a sting operation.”

According to the mayor, that “sting operation” led to Town waste disposal drivers being “threatened” with $25,000 fines, certification loss, and obstruction of justice charges if they discussed the investigation.

“So, I just find it appalling,” Holloway said, adding that, “Sheriff Butler called Sheriff Cubbage in Page and said we were dumping biohazards at the landfill”. On that inter-county note the mayor decided to move on and change subjects – “to something better”. However, it is worth noting that Warren County now “transfers” it waste to the Page County landfill.

Mayor Holloway called the WC Sheriff’s Office interaction with a Town Solid Waste crew ‘appalling’.

Royal Examiner contacted the named county officials for a reaction to Holloway and Meza’s accounts of the situation. Sheriff Butler responded by phone. “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation. But I can say there was an allegation that illegal dumping was occurring at the transfer station in Bentonville. I informed deputies of the situation. We were there exploring it when they observed the suspect truck coming in. At that point we launched the investigation.”

The Bentonville Waste Transfer Station, scene of the – what has yet to be determined, as a sample of Town ‘sludge’ or ‘treated sewage’ has been sent to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality for analysis. Below, Sheriff Butler was limited in commenting on ‘an ongoing investigation’ but defended his department’s actions on behalf of the county’s citizens on both sides of the town-county line. – Transfer Station Photo WC website

Interim County Administrator Daley responded in an email: “We received a complaint about materials being dumped at our transfer station and we were concerned about our employees. We asked the sheriff to investigate. He took a sample to be analyzed and we have authorized our employees to not take additional ‘NOT sewage’ or sewerage in the future. Our transfer station is not permitted to accept sewerage so we have to be cautious.”

Daley’s reference to “NOT sewage” (capitalization in context) was a reference to Councilman Meza’s seeming confusion in addressing the issue of exactly what the Town is sending to Bentonville for solid waste disposal.

“For those of you who don’t know, I just kind of wanted to relay the high-level facts,” Meza said during his Monday comments, continuing, “So, the Town treats sewage that’s brought in from the county, from septic systems and treats it at our plants, and then for many years has taken the treated sewage out there – well it’s not sewage but it’s treated – out to the landfills to dump it.”

Jacob Meza corrected himself after calling what the Town sends to the County Waste Transfer Station ‘treated sewage’ – ‘well, it’s not sewage’ he quickly surmised of its post-treatment status.

Whether sewage that is treated at a waste disposal plant continues to be sewage by definition may be an issue for Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) as this situation progresses and the sample taken by the sheriff’s office in Bentonville on April 20 is analyzed as Daley indicated it is being.

On Wednesday afternoon we contacted Board Chair Cullers by phone. She verified the informational sequence described by town officials. “I was informed by staff at the transfer station that material of concern mixed in with residential garbage was being dumped on the tipping floor … I informed the county administrator and we determined the sheriff should be informed,” she began.

However, rather than a nefarious County “sting operation” Cullers indicated the County was simply reacting with caution to protect its employees and citizens, including many in her home district along the roads to the Bentonville transfer station from town.

Now-County Board Chair Cheryl Cullers called the situation ‘unfortunate’ but observed that the County must assure it is operating within the law and its State waste disposal permitting.

“What I have been told is that our permit does not allow us to take material from the sewage plant. We do not want our employees exposed and all that comes through the South River District. I want good working relations with the Town – but we must work within the law. It’s an unfortunate situation,” the Warren County Board chair concluded.

On the bright side of this “unfortunate situation”, one might observe that no one was roughed up, shot or killed during the interaction so that Front Royal and Warren County become another national media road stop in the escalating national debate about law enforcement brutality during minor offense stops.

And in today’s national and local governmental environments, we’ll take small favors where we can find them.