DIRECTOR'S CORNER
Virginia sweeps the landscape clean
The Department of Environmental Quality is making a “clean sweep” of the remaining tire piles that litter Virginia’s landscape. It will result in a major victory for our environment and will benefit all Virginians.
Late 2004 marked the beginning of the cleanup, called Operation Clean Sweep. It is the last phase of a very successful, decade-long cleanup effort that has already eliminated more than 17 million tires from dumping sites in Virginia.
It became illegal to discard tires by dumping in 1988, and DEQ began to develop a plan to clean up the piles. Dumped for decades, the tire piles had grown to more than 1,000 in number by the early 1990s.
Since conducting a survey of tire piles in 1993, DEQ has worked with citizens and contractors to clean up more than 750 piles. Demonstration programs, regional tire collection and processing efforts, and financial incentives have all been very successful in ridding the environment of tires dumped around the state.
Now an estimated 3 million tires remain. Operation Clean Sweep will clean up more than 340 tire piles, most ranging from 100 to 100,000 tires, on a regional basis. The effort started in the Piedmont region, which includes Richmond and counties south of the capital as well as the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula.
A DEQ contractor begins the removal of a waste tire pile in Richmond, Virginia, in March 2005.
In March 2005 a DEQ contractor removed about 10,000 tires from a waste tire pile in an abandoned building in downtown Richmond, becoming one of the first targets of Operation Clean Sweep. The location of this tire pile proved the exception to the rule: most tires are dumped in ravines, in creek beds and on hill slopes.
We will phase in the cleanup effort in the four remaining regions – Northern Virginia, Tidewater, the Valley and South Central area, and Southwest and West Central Virginia. Rolling out this effort regionally will give more contractors the opportunity to participate. It will also reduce the cost of transportation expenses that would be associated with one statewide contract. Each cleanup is expected to last about a year.
Virginia is supporting this effort with funds from a three-year increase in the retail tire recycling fee, raised by the General Assembly in July 2003 from 50 cents to $1. We are awarding about $3 million in contracts around the state to remove waste tires in more than 340 piles and transport them to processing facilities.
Tire piles have the potential to be a significant fire hazard, and burning tires can pollute the air, water and land, posing a risk for the environment. The extra funds make the tire pile removal possible and will significantly improve our environment.
Like so many other environmental success stories, the tire pile cleanup has not happened overnight. Contamination that occurs over decades cannot be cleaned up quickly. Virginia’s tire pile cleanup effort underscores the importance of the patience and commitment necessary for an environmental victory. I look forward to when the work is complete and all Virginians can enjoy a healthier, cleaner landscape.