Sludge Watch ==> Sludge Company Show Mercy - State of Virginia Does Not

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

Company shows mercy but state doesn't


Lynchburg News & Advance
May 15, 2006



The president of Nutri-Blend should be commended for delaying the 
application of biosolids to a Campbell County pasture.

John Simons, the president of the sludge company based near Richmond, 
personally moved to postpone spreading the sludge for a year after talking 
to Dale Ellington of Campbell County.

Dale Ellington’s wife, Georgia, has cancer and they live near the Hickory 
Creek Road farm where the spreading of 2,500 wet tons of treated human and 
industrial waste from municipal wastewater systems had been set to begin 
last week.

Nutri-Blend’s Simons apparently has a heart. It’s unclear whether the same 
is true for the Virginia bureaucracy, which not only allows but also 
endorses the spreading of the material despite health concerns.

In Central Virginia, there is near-unanimous opposition to the use of sludge 
as fertilizer, except from the few farmers who benefit and the sludge 
companies who are making the money.

But don’t bother the bureaucracy with concerns about health.

Robert Hicks, director of the state health department’s office of 
environmental health services, said the health department would have allowed 
the spreading, despite the Ellingtons’ concerns, saying the “buffers were 
appropriate.”

Kathleen V. Nichols, director of the Central Virginia Health District, told 
Blair Goldstein of The News & Advance, “I think everybody who deals with 
this information would say we don’t have enough information to say it’s not 
safe and we don’t have enough information to say it’s perfectly safe.”

If it’s not perfectly safe and just about everyone hereabouts is opposed to 
it, why does the state allow it?

In granting a permit to Nutri-Blend in the first place, the health 
department put the financial interests of the sludge haulers ahead of the 
health considerations of the people who live near the 130 acres of farmland 
owned by G.D. Gilliam, an Appomattox County resident.

At two public hearings since Nutri-Blend first applied for a permit to 
spread the sludge on Gilliam’s property, the people of Campbell County made 
it clear there were too many unanswered questions about how the stuff 
affects the air and water around them.

Georgia Ellington’s health has deteriorated since the couple first began 
speaking out against the spread of sewage sludge. Since then, she has been 
diagnosed with lung cancer and has been treated for five malignant brain 
tumors.

She said at first she was concerned about the environmental effects of 
spreading the treated sludge, but now her health and the health of her 
neighbors have become a greater concern.

Another neighbor who lives less than a quarter of a mile from the Gilliam 
property is worried about the lasting environmental effects and the 
unanswered questions he has about the contents of biosolids from wastewater 
systems.

Larry Bouchard said he is concerned about the levels of pathogens and hard 
metals that can be found in biosolids. While the federal Environmental 
Protection Agency requires wastewater treatment plants to keep such harmful 
elements at low levels, checks are not required on all the potential toxins.

“It’s not the human waste, it’s the other garbage that’s in the stuff,” he 
said.

“Everybody’s hollering about the smell, but I’m worried about the industrial 
waste.”

Bouchard also raised a point that other critics have made when he said it is 
ironic that the state is putting up another $200 million to help with the 
Chesapeake Bay cleanup, but will not stop biosolids from being spread on 
upstream farmlands.

Mary Powell, a spokeswoman for Nutri-Blend, said the odor of the sludge is 
not as bad as many people have claimed and that it should not extend much 
past Gilliam’s property.

Other spokesmen for the waste haulers say the sludge is safe and that 
investigations have never concluded that they were the cause of any 
sickness.

A number of academic studies and investigations show  otherwise.

Campbell County Administrator David Laurrell believes the county - and all 
counties - should have more say in the local application of the sludge. He 
said the state should be in charge of monitoring the influx of sludge into 
Virginia, while local governments should have the final say about what sites 
are chosen.

And that’s a problem, not only for Campbell County, but also for Amherst 
County, where a permit application is pending, and for other counties in the 
state.

The Ellingtons can rest a little easier for a year thanks to Simons’ 
admirable decision. But what about the rest of Central Virginia?

The people in Campbell have made it clear they don’t want the sewage sludge; 
a majority of the Board of Supervisors has made it clear it doesn’t want the 
sludge in the county.

Now, the president of a sludge company, while not acknowledging that 
biosolids are dangerous, has moved to help out a suffering family.

So what does it take to get that message through to the General Assembly and 
to the state health department, which continues to have the final say?

For now, as the folks in Campbell County are learning, the sludge haulers 
have a far louder voice in Virginia’s rural localities than do the people.

The state legislators will have to change that.