About 50,000 visit each year, and they do more damage to the plantation than the trash business, he says. The fight at Shirley Plantation is just a skirmish in a bigger battle over trash imports. Since 1990, seven commercial landfills have opened in Virginia. The commonwealth ranks second in the nation behind Pennsylvania in trash imports. Last year, an estimated 3.2 million tons of trash was brought here, mostly by truck or rail, compared with 1.7 million tons in 1995.
More trash is on the way.
Because of industry mergers, Waste Management controls four of the Old Dominion's seven commercial landfills. That contract is part of New York's preparation for closing its massive Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island by 2002. New York already supplies more than half of Virginia's imported trash, and Fresh Kills' closing will put another 12,000 tons a day on the market. States are powerless to stop trash importing because it is considered interstate commerce, but state leaders are scrambling to find other ways to control it. The state could, for example, increase inspections on waste haulers.