Landfill contamination lawsuits continue in Campbell County

By Chris Dumond and Sarah Watson
The News & Advance
Published: April 5, 2008

After three years of legal wrangling, several lawsuits about who is responsible for groundwater contamination from the Campbell County landfill still hang in limbo.

Millions of dollars are at stake between potential damages and ongoing cleanup costs.

Claude and Virginia Royal, owners of the 165-acre Twin Oaks manufactured home parknear Yellow Branch, discovered in 2002 that well water serving their residents had elevated levels of volatile organic chemicals, according to a Department of Environmental Quality consent order to the county.

After three years of discussions with the county, the Royals filed several lawsuits in 2005 and 2006 charging that the county operated the landfill in a manner that caused a plume of toxic chemicals to pollute their water and land.

In 2007, Campbell County filed a third-party lawsuit against the landfill’s engineer, Richmond-based Joyce Engineering Inc., to recover any damages the county might have to pay to the Royals and for the cost of cleaning the contamination from the ground.

Since then, the legal maneuvering has repeatedly stalled, with trial dates postponed or changed while a multi-million dollar effort by the county to start cleaning up the contaminated wells is ongoing.

The lawsuits

The Royals contend that leakage from the landfill has polluted their wells, and surface water running off the landfill has polluted the ground. The situation is so bad, their attorney Charlie Williams wrote in his filings, that Campbell County has effectively seized the Royals’ land.

They have sued for $10 million, the maximum the law will allow, Claude Royal said.

Campbell County Attorney David Shreve said the landfill, built in 1979, was unlined — as all landfills were at the time — and that pollutants have leaked into groundwater under the Royals’ property.

However, Shreve said, one would have to drink nearly a six-pack’s worth of the polluted water every day for 30 years before it might become a health problem.

In his filings, he contends the Royals have interfered with the county’s efforts to fix the problem through filing “frivolous” bankruptcies. The Royals also had interfered by refusing to grant the county permanent access to wells used to pump out the polluted water into a treatment facility, and for wells used to monitor pollution levels, Shreve said.

The wells were installed, Shreve said, but the county has had to file lawsuits against the Royals to get permanent access. The county has offered to install public water at the site, he added, but the family has refused.

“It’s public water with conditions,” Claude Royal said. “(The county) offered it before and wanted me to accept all the liability. I’m not interested in that,” he said.

Royal also said he didn’t think it was fair to charge him for public water because his wells were contaminated by the county. “I had good water and they took it,” he said.

The county’s lawsuit also seeks condemnation of the polluted groundwater so no one could drill more wells from the property.

In the meantime, the county also filed a third-party lawsuit against Joyce, the landfill engineering company, to cover any money the Royals may win in their lawsuit and for the cost of pumping and treating polluted groundwater.

“We’ve determined that (Joyce Engineering was) negligent for not monitoring the situation,” Shreve said.

Out-of-court mediation was scheduled for April 1, but Williams said it was canceled.Lawyers representing Joyce Engineering did not respond to interview requests by press time.

Amherst County Circuit Court Judge Michael Gamble is hearing the case in lieu of Campbell County Judge Samuel Johnston, who is expected to retire this summer.

In a February order, Gamble tentatively scheduled a trial for December.

The dates have yet to be finalized, but schedules have called for a 15-day trial — effectively three weeks of court.

While the process has been slow, Claude Royal said they have come a long way. “The county is agreeing with the consultants that I had originally gotten,” he said. “I appreciate everything that has been done.”

Remediation and expense

As of last month, Campbell County has spent more than $3.5 million on design, engineering and construction to start cleaning up the groundwater. As of March 2007, the county has spent more than $140,000 in legal expenses to Shreve, according to county documents.

The county also paid a $14,000 fine to DEQ in 2003.

The groundwater remediation started in 2006 and there’s no end in sight, said county public works director Clif Tweedy.

The county installed 24 remediation wells on the landfill property and the Royals’ property, which pump 20,000 to 30,000 gallons of groundwater per day to the landfill through 24 pipelines.

The water is then filtered to remove the volatile organic compounds, such as benzene, vinyl chloride and acetone, and is discharged into a stream on the landfill property, Tweedy said. “(The discharge is) very clear water and we have to test it on a regular basis to make sure it doesn’t have any (volatile organic compounds) in it.”

The idea is to pump all the contaminated water out of the ground, treat the water and clean it up, Tweedy said.

The county tests for about 50 chemicals and since the cleanup started, some levels have dropped, some have increased and some stayed the same, Tweedy said. However, he added, it’s too early to tell if the process is working.

The remediation does not have a set time frame because it depends on when the pollution levels drop below state standards, Tweedy said. “Until the levels get below the standards, we’ll have to continue to operate. No one really wants to hazard a guess.”

- Contact Chris Dumond at
of (434) 385-5537
- Contact Sarah Watson at
or (434) 385-5543