Ken Mogul is one step closer to building a state-of-the-art construction and demolition recycling center in Loudoun County.
The Planning Commission voted 8-1 to approve Ace Waste Recycling Facility Monday, Nov. 6, with Barbara Munsey, Dulles District representative, opposed.
Over the past few months, Mogul, the company’s president, has worked hard to convince the Planning Commission of the need for a new recycling center located near the Dulles International Airport, between Bears School Road and Route 606 in Dulles.
Citizens at a Planning Commission public hearing last month said they were concerned about additional traffic, the amount of noise and other problems the facility would produce on local roads.
Cullen Woehrle, an IT systems coordinator at ADESA, Washington, D.C., a car dealership located next door to the proposed Ace Waste Recycling center, is concerned about the proposed center’s affect on his business.
ADESA sells 25,000 cars per year. All of those cars have to be washed and waxed an average of three times before they leave the lot. Woerhle’s major concern with Mogul’s plan is the amount of dust and dirt the recycling center will produce, that may fall onto the cars.
"Any amount of dust from the recycling center would blanket about 5,000 cars," he said. "We’d end up having to wash them all of the time and we don’t have the money to do that."
Woerhle is also concerned with the amount of traffic the dump trucks to and from Ace Waste Recycle would generate on Old Ox Road.
"It’s landing right down in the middle of citizens that don’t want it," Munsey said.
IN RESPONSE, Mogul provided the Planning Commission with a visual.
In a video of one of his operating construction and demolition recycling centers in New York, Mogul demonstrated how to separate debris and recycle it. First, dirt and debris were separated into large bins. Men sifted through materials on conveyor belts and separated them into two piles, oversized and midsized objects.
"Once you separate the materials, you make them into something else," Mogul said.
For example, metal can be made into things like cars and guardrails, he said.
"We recycle 95 percent of what comes in," Mogul said. "It’s actually higher than that now."
In New York, Mogul recycles more than 1,000 tons of construction and demolition waster per day.
The recycling center traffic would be minimal, Mogul said. His trucks would be making approximately 90 trips per day, picking up and dropping off materials from around Loudoun County.
MOGUL WAS NOT surprised by the vote of approval.
"We want to provide a missing link in the county," he said.
In Mogul’s proposed plan to the county, Ace Waste Recycling would recycle cardboard, concrete, dirt, metal, plastics, wallboard and wood from construction and demolition sites around the county.
"We’re a local business," he said.
Mogul moved to Northern Virginia for a couple of reasons, to be closer to family and to tap into the construction recycling business here.
"There’s a phenomenal amount of waste in Northern Virginia," he said.
The reason his facility would work in Loudoun County is due to the large amount of construction activity and the high construction waste disposal fees, about $70 per ton, he said.
"There’s no competition."
THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS will ultimately determine whether or not Mogul will build a construction and demolition recycling center in Dulles.
"I hope the board takes what the Planning Commission has to say into consideration," he said. "They’ve studied it and they see the value of having a project like mine in the area."