A private landfill in Chesterfield County, Virginia is in the middle of becoming one of the worst environmental disasters in the state's recent history. The people responsible for it may walk away free while taxpayers and communities absorb the damage.

The Shoosmith Landfill off Ironbridge Road in Chester has operated since 1976. In 2008, the original founding family sold the facility to a Texas-based investor group led by Fred G. Nichols (President) and Paul Lawrence McGee (Vice President), operating through Shoosmith Bros. Inc. (though not affiliated with the founding family) and its parent company VWS Holdco, Inc. Under nearly two decades of their management, the site accumulated a long record of permit violations, inadequate infrastructure, and regulatory noncompliance. The landfill stopped accepting waste in December 2022, and VWS Holdco filed for bankruptcy in June 2025, leaving behind virtually no assets against an estimated $183 million in debt. (Sources: Bondoro Case Summary​; ElevenFlo Case Analysi)

Making matters worse, a former employee was found to have falsified leachate reports, triggering Chesterfield County to terminate its disposal contract in July 2024 and causing treatment costs to surge elevenford overnight, accelerating the financial collapse. (source: USA Herald)

What's happening right now is not theoretical. The site is generating approximately 65,000 gallons of toxic leachate every single day. That liquid, containing the byproducts of decades of decomposing waste including ammonia, zinc, and suspended solids, must be constantly collected and hauled off-site to prevent it from reaching surrounding waterways. It is already failing to stay contained. In December 2025, dark liquid with the appearance of leachate was observed discharging into conveyances leading to Swift Creek and Piney Branch, with ammonia, zinc, and suspended solids exceeding legal discharge limits. Swift Creek flows into the Appomattox River, which flows into the James River at Hopewell, where a public drinking water intake serves roughly 9,300 residential and commercial users. (Source: CBS 6/ WTVR, June 4, 2026; JRA Press Release (James River Association), June 3, 2026)

The Virginia DEQ's May 2026 inspection documented the full scope of failure at the site: no licensed operator on record since December 2024; outdated financial assurance estimates last updated in 2017; broken slope drains and missing diversion berms; leachate present in stormwater conveyance systems, multiple landfill cells, and sediment basins; and methane readings in perimeter probes reaching as high as 29.6% by volume. (Source: WRIC ABC 8 news, May 27, 2026)

The engineering estimate to fully remediate this site is $172 million over 30 years. Available bond funds total just over $19 million. The bankruptcy trustee, Lynn Tavenner, has described the challenges as keeping her "awake most nights" and called the situation a potential "environmental catastrophe" in court filings. She is now seeking the ability to simply abandon the site entirely if funding dries up. ( CBS 6 / WTVR, June 4, 2026)

Court records filed by attorneys representing the Virginia DEQ state that Nichols and McGee, referred to as the "insiders," "pocketed millions of dollars" "rather than investing in the necessary infrastructure and remediation efforts that were required to comply with applicable law." The same records state that "the bankruptcy case appeared to be a ruse for the insiders to avoid their liability for the environmental catastrophe they had created." Chesterfield County's own lawyers raised in a court filing that "the insiders may have criminal liability under Virginia law for abandoning the landfill without proper closure or adequate financial assurance instruments for such closure." The owners' attorney has denied all allegations, stating "there is no proof or evidence of anything." (CBS6 / WTVR, June 4, 2026)

One important distinction worth making: Shoosmith Construction Inc., a separate company that shares the Shoosmith name but has not been affiliated with the landfill since 2008, has publicly stated that its employees are equally concerned about the current state of the site. They bear no responsibility for what has occurred under the Nichols and McGee ownership group. (WRIC ABC 8News)

This is not a situation where the cause is unclear. Private actors profited from this facility for nearly two decades, neglected their legal obligations, extracted their wealth, and filed for bankruptcy when the bill came due. The public, including people who's water comes from the downstream drinking water facility, James River recreation users, and Virginia taxpayers, is now being positioned to absorb that cost.

We refuse to accept that, and we are demanding action at every level.

From the EPA Region 3: Formally evaluate Shoosmith Landfill for Superfund (CERCLA) designation immediately. The scale of contamination risk, the active leaching into public waterways, the proximity to a public drinking water intake, and the bankruptcy of the responsible parties are precisely the conditions the Superfund program was created to address. Federal designation unlocks enforcement mechanisms and funding streams that Virginia alone cannot access. (Learn more: EPA Superfund Program )

From the U.S. Department of Justice and Virginia Attorney General: Pursue every available legal avenue, civil and criminal, against Fred G. Nichols, Paul Lawrence McGee, and any other principals of Shoosmith Bros. Inc. and VWS Holdco. The public record includes court-filed allegations of asset extraction, intentional underfunding of remediation obligations, falsified regulatory reports, and possibly potential criminal abandonment under Virginia law. These individuals must not be permitted to shelter behind the bankruptcy process while communities bear the environmental consequences of their decisions.

From the Virginia Governor and General Assembly: Authorize approximately $50 million in emergency funding over two years to construct an on-site leachate treatment facility and stabilize the site before contamination becomes irreversible. This is a bridge, not a solution, and it is urgent. The state budget remains unresolved, but as Senator Sturtevant has written, "a problem of this size cannot be solved through an after-session request to a handful of local legislators." Virginia must also immediately reform its financial assurance requirements so that landfill operators are never again permitted to carry bond coverage this far below their actual environmental liability. (WRIC ABC 8 News)

From the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors: Use every available legal tool to pursue cost recovery from the responsible parties and maintain maximum public pressure on state and federal authorities to act. The county identified this problem years before the public knew. That institutional knowledge needs to translate into aggressive, visible leadership now. (Chesterfield On Point)

 
65,000 gallons. Every day. Into waterways that end at a public drinking water intake serving thousands of families.

The operators of this landfill had years and every financial incentive to prevent this. According to court filings, they chose not to. The very least we can demand is that they are held to full account, and that the full force of state and federal law is deployed to make this right before it becomes a generational environmental catastrophe for Central Virginia.

Sign. Share. Make noise.

Every signature is a data point that politicians and agencies cannot ignore. Every share is another person who knows. The window to prevent the worst outcome is closing.

(image source: https://www.chesterfield.gov/m/newsflash/Home/Detail/7300