State and county officials, through correspondence, identified examples of unlawful waste dumped in the Hidden Lane Landfill between 1976 and 1983.
* In a March 3, 1976 inter-office memo, Robert Forman, a consultant with the Bureau of Solid Waste and Vector Control, state Department of Health, said he discovered about 500 tires at the site. The owners were asked to remove them.
* In a Jan. 24, 1977 memo, Registered Sanitarian William Vermilye found a moderate amount of garbage, mainly oranges and other citrus fruits, stale bread and assorted food scraps. He also found newspapers, beer and wine bottles food cartons, bags, cans, jars and bottles and a large amount of office paper.
* A "Mr. Miller," in a handwritten letter dated Oct. 4, 1979, wrote that he observed operators disposing of a lot of asbestos at the landfill, even though they are not authorized to receive toxic wastes.
* Then Loudoun's Environmental Health Supervisor Robert Montgomery Jr., in a May 20, 1981 correspondence to Elmer Wiser, the landfill's operator, wrote that he saw 25 to 30 discarded 55-gallon drums being used as traffic control markers and some were being discarded. The nearly empty drums contained herbicides and pesticides used routinely in the commercial and home landscaping industry. He advised Wiser to either sanitize them or deposit them in a landfill created for that type of waste. Wiser said the drums had been cleaned, and his crew would sanitize them again.
* An April 5, 1983 memo, written by Montgomery, said Forman advised the landfill operators that the presence of paper was not acceptable. Forman advised them that they must place the material back on trucks and move it to a sanitary landfill. Forman informed them of "severe action" if the paper was not moved.
* A June 27, 1979 memo written by Montgomery indicates leachate was found again, in three locations. "This, if it does continue, will constitute a water pollution problem, and will be difficult to rectify," he wrote.
* In a March 30, 1981 memo, Linda Herzberg of the state Water Control Board, wrote that hydrocarbons leached from asphalt debris was endangering the site and surrounding property. The planned construction sites to the east and south of the landfill and Broad Run Farms to the west are in danger, she wrote.
* A Feb. 22, 1982 letter, Montgomery said a water sample from the landfill's well had high levels of lead, "a toxic metal."
* In a March 2, 1983 memo, County Sanitarian Tom W. Ashton wrote that he observed "black liquid" at the northern nose of the landfill. He said the liquid was moving off site slightly more than during his visit a month prior.
<1b>Compiled by Andrea Zentz