County edges closer to dump cleanup
By Kelly Alm
In the woods behind Mt. Paran Church, located on Rattlesnake Mountain in Linden, heaps of garbage blanket the ground.
Entangled in shrubs and plants, it is clear that some of the trash has inhabited the area for a long time, while fresh specimens suggest that the site is still being used illegally as a dumping ground.
But that is soon to change.
After years of hassling Fauquier County to clean up the site, the county has finally conceded.
Members of the Rattlesnake Mountain Association (RMA), a grassroots community watchdog representing more than 200 local residents and property owners along the Fiery Run Road corridor in Linden, will meet with Director of Environmental Services Mike Dorsey at the trash site this Saturday. There, they will discuss the particulars of the cleanup, which is scheduled for Feb. 1.
Discoveries and complaints about the site were originally made by homeowner Rob Pulliam, who bought a house adjacent to the site in August 2004.
“It’s taken a while,” Pulliam said. “They’ve made steady progress, albeit slow, but I’m very pleased with the final outcome.”
In 2006, the possible threat of power lines crisscrossing through the rural community galvanized the usually dispersed neighborhood, and residents and property owners formed the Rattle Snake Association.
While the power lines remained their focus, the landfill issue was also raised.
“We’ve been communicating with the county since then,” said RMA President Bruce Haslam. "They’ve been generally responsive as far as promising to do something, but the process was slow. It was a matter of staying their case.”
According to Lauren Fillmore, who is on the RMA board of directors, the county originally thought RMA could take care of it. “But, this is huge. It’s not a small cleanup. We would need a front-end loader,” Fillmore said.
Fillmore estimates that there are about 30 refrigerators, as well as car parts and batteries.
Mt. Paran, a historically black church, is vacant most of the time, only receiving visitors when descendants of its original congregation return for service.
Although the garbage sits in the churches wooded backyard, the church does not own that land.
“I think there were two issues for the county,” said Haslam. “First, trying to figure out who owns the land, and work around that. Secondly, they needed to make sure they have the adequate resources to pay for the cleanup.”
County officials have traced some of the land back to “absentee owners” who inherited the property, but never stepped foot on it or paid property taxes.
“We have contacted them, but if they don’t decide to come clean it up, the county will,” said Anthony Hooper, assistant county administrator who has worked to untangle some of the legal elements involving the site.
If the county does go forward with the clean-up, a lien will be placed on the land and the property sold, which would in turn reimburse the county for the cost of the cleanup.