There are two chief complaints regarding Smith Family Farm in Gainesville that have caused tensions between the farmers and the local community as well as the county government during the last couple years.

One is that the steady flow of dump trucks entering the farm creates a driving hazard for commuters on Catharpin Road. Residential complaints led to the Virginia Department of Transportation issuing a statement to the Smiths that dump truck traffic entering and exiting the farm must stop by Aug. 31.

The county government, however, is more interested in a legal sense of determining whether there is an illegal landfill on the Smith Family Farm property. A November court date is set to decide the issue.

Owner Brad Smith and his attorney John McBride of Odin, Feldman & Pittleman P.C. claim the farm is not serving as a landfill or a dump. Both sat down for interviews at the farm last Thursday and, along with Smith's wife Leigh, offered a guided tour of the 211-acre property.

What the interview revealed is that Smith is dismissive of those taking issue with the dump trucks, saying he and his family dealt with the development of Heritage Hunt right next door.

"It doesn't matter what you do, you can always find something to complain about," said Smith. "Just like when we endured the frustration of what they had to do, we're sorry but they're going to have to endure (this) frustration."

Sometimes, Smith can come across as terse.

When asked about how trash actually gets into the dirt that’s supposed to be clean upon delivery, Smith said he could blame in some instances "some frickin' idiot that don't [sic] know how to throw away anything right," leaving him or his contractor Donovan Construction left to clean it up.

However, the tour showed Smith can back up his claims about what is on and not on the property, at least upon casual inspection.

Goals

What Smith said he is trying to accomplish by having trucks unload dirt and other byproducts from construction sites is to have materials necessary to level out about 45 acres or so of his fields. He pointed out that the leveling is necessary for steady water flow.

That land can then be converted for different agricultural uses. Products he and McBride discussed included strawberries, pumpkins, a horse boarding facility, an open pasture, additional ponds for commercial fishing and a place for school buses to park so kids can tour the farm.

"You have to make changes in order for the public to come in," Smith said.

Currently, his farm features cattle, goats, chickens and other farm animals among other livestock.

Mounds

Blue plastic tubes stacked to the side of the gravel road running along the north side of the property with the words "Buffalo Tank Corp." from Baltimore will eventually be used for ponds. Hydro seed, which resembles a gray ash, is spread over acres of dirt.

What someone would generally envision when thinking of the word "landfill" -- i.e., humps of trash -- is not present on the farm. There are several different mounds ranging from tree stumps to blue plastic tubes all across the property. Smith and McBride explained each has uses.

That's not to say everything entering the farm is perfect, or at least was last week. There were pieces of debris on the ground in a manner similar to what might be present at a different construction site. In the part of the property laid a twisted metal iron. In other places, an aluminum can or other pieces of trash.

So when it comes to trash, litter exists, though there appeared not to be a lot of it.

What is distinctly noticeable, aside from 14 construction waste containers and series of back hoes and other construction vehicles, are piles at least 15 to 20 feet high made out of discarded tree trunks and stalks.

According to Smith, those piles on the property can be converted to mulch or wooden planks.

He pointed to gravel, concrete and asphalt bits along his driveway that came from construction sites. He said those materials provide a solid roadway. McBride mentioned that during the winter, animals can also feed off of it as opposed to mud.

Other stones can be used for constructing ponds. Concrete slabs at the entrance from Artemus Road also act as barriers for traffic entering and exiting the property.

Smith explained that the materials that make up the mounds come from different construction sites throughout the area.

This is how he and McBride tell it:

Donovan Construction work out a deal with whoever is in charge of a construction site and offers to take away "good dirt" and other items Smith says he can use for his farm.

Since that excess material needs to leave the construction zone eventually, the site managers work out a deal with Donovan where Donovan is paid to haul away the load.

Those goods, such as concrete, dirt, etc., are then brought back to the farm in dump trucks and are poured out wherever needed.

McBride provided a June 27 e-mail addressed to Del. Bob Marshall (R-13th) and Oak Valley homeowners association president Mac Haddow, who runs a blog called "Stop The Dump Trucks". The same e-mail appears on Haddow's blog.

Authored by Thomas Faha, the director of the Northern Regional Office for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the e-mail stated that DEQ Waste Compliance Inspector Dan Demers "observed the contents of approximately 20 trucks that arrived on-site to dump soils; none of the truck loads contained materials that would characterize the soils as either contaminated soil or as solid waste. These observations match those made by DEQ in June 2010."

Faha added, "With these observations, DEQ has no reason to believe that the material being brought to Smith Farm is anything other than clean fill."

Haddow contends otherwise on his blog, showing pictures of plastic and rubber debris dated from 2008 and 2009. The point of the county’s November lawsuit is to determine whether that is the case. That should also determine whether the mound piles, left as they are, are legal too.

"Anything and everything we can do to create a better economic (condition) for the farm, we're going to do," said Smith, adding that he hopes the farm will stay around for another 100 years.