12:51 PM EDT on Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Associated Press

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) -- Officials with the state Department of Conservation and Recreation have vowed a quick cleanup of a massive trash dump in the middle of False Cape State Park.

Officials said Monday they will truck material that can't be recycled to a landfill as early as this week, then invite scrap haulers to remove metal that can be salvaged.

"We are going to do everything we can to assure the public we are being responsible and responsive," department Director Joseph H. Maroon said. He also promised that waste will be removed more frequently in the future.

The secluded dump has heaps of scrap metal, piles of tires, hunks of wood, construction debris, rotting animal carcasses and a smattering of medical waste.

Most of the material washed ashore during storms. Park officials say the area is too remote to remove the junk on a regular basis, so it's stashed in piles until it can be taken out.

The story of the dump, first reported Saturday by The Virginian-Pilot, prompted several offers Monday to help clean it up.

One came from the Sierra Club Chesapeake Bay Group. Ellis James, chairman of the conservation committee, said he'd been aware that the dump existed but not that it had grown so large.

Rich Wilson, owner of Atlantic Waste Services of Chesapeake, said he would lend park officials bins for scrap metal and other debris until it can be hauled away.

City Councilman Peter W. Schmidt, who led the state's Department of Environmental Quality under Gov. Jim Gilmore, said he had contacted the city's solid waste director to see whether Virginia Beach could help.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)