Hanover County residents who live near the Ashcake Road Landfill spent months pushing back against a request by its owner, Leadbetter Inc., to expand the disposal site. They circulated online petitions and spoke against the project throughout the planning process.

But Hanover’s Board of Supervisors approved the request Wednesday night in a narrow 4–3 vote, which sparked audible disappointment in the county’s administrative building after several hours of public comment.

Chair Michael Herzberg of Cold Harbor voted against the request, as did Mechanicsville Supervisor Ryan Hudson and Ashland Supervisor Faye Prichard.

“We're voting on whether or not this landfill is appropriate for this community,” Prichard said before the vote. “By every ethical ounce of my conscience, it is not,”

Beaverdam Supervisor Jeff Stoneman, a member of the Central Virginia Waste Management Authority’s board of directors, voted in favor of the expansion, but not without reservation.

“I've done the research, and I've looked at this project every which way,” said Stoneman — whose district includes the landfill site — before casting his yes. “I've been on the fence the whole time. I just had to take a position, one way or the other, right or wrong.”

Extending the landfill’s lifespan

The 200-acre property near Interstate 95’s Lewistown Road exit has been in operation since 1987. It accepts around 165 tons of waste per day, with the ability to process up to 500 tons a day.

The Ashcake landfill is one of four regional landfills that accepts construction and demolition debris rather than typical household trash, according to CVWMA. The authority’s 20-year waste management plan shows that as of January 2024, the current landfill had already accepted over 900,000 tons of debris — more than 80% of its permitted capacity of 1.13 million tons.

Leadbetter has said the existing site can only last until this summer at its current capacity. It also says the request to convert around 30 acres of borrow pits — excavated land — into a new landfill would extend the property’s life by 25–30 years.

The company submitted a similar request for expansion in August 2022, but supervisors at the time voted unanimously against it.

Renada Harris, co-executive director of the Brown Grove Preservation Group, urged the board to deny the request again. Harris said the site borders the Brown Grove Rural Historic District, a historically African American neighborhood founded in the Reconstruction era by formerly enslaved men and women.

As an advocate for the Brown Grove community, Harris said part of her group's focus is to support homebuilding in the area, rather than industrial developments "that don't add any value to Brown Grove's growth and history."

“It was clear that the landfill was not a good fit for the community,” Harris told VPM News about the 2022 vote. “This time, I don’t see how it's any different.”

Concerns around environmental testing

The landfill is also close to the Mount Hermon Farms and Cheroy Woods residential developments. Kathy Buckley, a Mount Hermon Farms homeowner, spoke in opposition to the request Wednesday, citing decades’ worth of compliance complaints against the landfill by state agencies.

“We rely on well water, and many of our homes' [have] shallow wells. A landfill this close puts our water, our health and our families at real risk,” Buckley told supervisors. “This isn't about whether the landfill owner is a good person or runs a good business. This is about protecting people.”

Leadbetter was issued warning letters by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality in 2001, every year from 2016 to 2020, and 2024, county planning documents show. And in 2003, the state’s energy department inspected the landfill after an employee was accidentally killed on the site.

Recent reporting by the Richmond Times-Dispatch indicated that some of DEQ’s warnings were related to tests finding contaminants in groundwater surrounding the facility, but Andrew Condlin, an attorney representing Leadbetter, downplayed environmental concerns Wednesday.

“In 30-plus years, we've received warning letters because there have been issues with respect to some of the testing,” Condlin said. “We've never, ever received from DEQ a violation letter. In every instance, DEQ has been satisfied with the additional testing and/or the explanation that has been provided.”

Condlin also said Leadbetter had heard the concerns of Brown Grove residents and would follow recommendations from Hanover’s Historical Commission, conduct an environmental resource study and adhere to the county's historic design standards.

Some business owners spoke in favor of the landfill expansion Wednesday, including John Sneed, who runs a construction company in Chesterfield County. “It is a top-notch facility in its management and how it's run, and this landfill is desperately needed here in the county, it's needed throughout the entire metro Richmond area,” Sneed said. “To lose this location would mean hauling [debris] that much further away, which doesn’t help anybody.”

South Anna Supervisor Sue Dibble, who served on the board that unanimously denied Leadbetter’s 2022 request, said she has since changed her position.

“This proposal is far and above the proposal from 2022,” Dibble said ahead of the vote. “It’s significantly different.”

Harris, of the Brown Grove Preservation Group, said the supervisors who voted to extend the landfill’s lifespan had one priority in mind.

“Those who voted for the Hanover landfill voted for business over people,” Harris said. “That’s really what it boils down to.”