[CPEO-BIF] Old dump affects new homes in Chesapeake

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Old dump affects new homes in Chesapeake

By ROBERT MCCABE
The Virginian-Pilot
February 27, 2005

CHESAPEAKE - A 57-home subdivision is being built on riverfront property
that includes an old dump site with high underground concentrations of
lead and combustible gas. 

Two top officials of the city Planning Department, which approved the
preliminary subdivision plans 15 months ago, said this week that they
didn't know anything about the dump or its contaminants until they were
told by a Virginian-Pilot reporter on Tuesday. 

The development, River's Edge at Quailshire, is on Airline Boulevard
near Bowers Hill on a bend of the Western Branch of the Elizabeth River.
It will feature houses priced at $300,000 and up, some of which are
under construction.

Because of contamination at the site, current deeds for the subdivision
state that future homeowners cannot put in private wells for lawn
watering or any other purpose. On the riverfront home sites, no
vegetables or other edible plants can be grown, no walkways can be built
and no piers can be installed within the boundary of the former dump.

The subdivision's original developers ? four prominent Chesapeake
businessmen ? were aware of the site's history when they bought the property.

In May 2003, they filed a request with the state Department of
Environmental Quality to participate in a Voluntary Remediation Program
to clean up the entire subdivision. The developers' application to the
DEQ included specific details about the high levels of lead and
combustible gas underground and the site's history as a dump. 

...

For the entire article, see
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=82764&ran=192004

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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