CHESTERFIELD, Va. (WWBT) – The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality said the agency is cooperating fully with the Office of the Attorney General’s ongoing investigations into the actions of the owners of a bankrupt private landfill in Chesterfield along Iron Bridge Road, which has been the center of a potential environmental catastrophe.
A spokesperson for DEQ told 12 On Your Side while the agency can’t speak on the motivation behind the owners filing for bankruptcy, the agency said, “it is a violation of state law for any person to knowingly and willfully abandon a solid waste management facility without proper closure or without providing adequate financial assurance instruments for such closure.”
“If such failure to close results in significant harm or an imminent and substantial threat of significant harm to human health or the environment, that person shall be liable to the Commonwealth and any political subdivision for the costs incurred in abating, controlling, preventing, removing, or containing such harm or threat,” said a DEQ spokesperson in an email to 12 On Your Side. “Further, any person who knowingly and willfully abandons a solid waste management facility without proper closure, or without providing adequate financial assurance instruments for such closure, and whose failure to close results in significant harm or an imminent and substantial threat of significant harm to human health or the environment, has committed a criminal offense.”
These developments come as environmental concerns loom over the private landfill, which filed for bankruptcy in June 2025…