Sludge Watch ==> Virginia - Public's Welfare vs Sludge Haulers

[Maureen Reilly]

The public's welfare vs. sludge haulers
Lynchburg News & Advance
Sunday, January 14, 2007


If Virginia counties are generally responsible for protecting the health and 
welfare of the people who live there, why can’t they say no to the spread of 
possibly toxic sewage sludge?

The short answer is because the state won’t allow counties to enact such a 
ban. The state has rules that govern the spread of biosolids - treated 
municipal sewage sludge - and the counties can’t override the state 
regulations.

But that short answer, which has been upheld in several federal court 
rulings, could be tested in Campbell County.

The people in Campbell - at least 250 of them who showed up at a recent 
meeting of the Board of Supervisors - are opposed to spread of sludge on 
farmland in the county. They believe that the corporations that want to 
spread the sludge are violating their right to a healthy environment. They 
also believe that the people should have the right - by way of a county 
ordinance - to stand up to the biosolids haulers and say, “No, we don’t want 
that stuff in our county.”

It’s an interesting debate that will be played out against the backdrop of 
the General Assembly session that will also wrestle with the question of how 
much authority the localities should have in controlling the spread of 
biosolids on pastures and hayfields.

The subject re-emerged in Campbell when Nutri-Blend, a biosolids hauler, 
sought to modify a permit it has in the county to expand the amount of land 
it could “fertilize” to more than 3,000 acres.

A group calling itself Citizens Against Toxic Sludge has formed in Campbell 
to oppose the sludge. Jennifer England, a representative of the group, 
presented the Board of Supervisors last week with a draft ordinance that 
would ban corporations from spreading biosolids in the county.

“We found that corporations hold more power and more rights than citizens 
and communities,” she told the board. “The state allows corporations to use 
that power to circumvent the will of the citizen majority.”

Getting to the reason underlying the group’s opposition to the spread of 
sludge, England said the safety of land-applied sewage sludge can’t be 
guaranteed and that it’s linked to hundreds of illnesses around the country.

Board Chairman J.D. Puckett made it clear the county has consistently 
opposed the spread of biosolids, but that it is essentially powerless to 
stop them. “I would like to encourage you to ask your state representatives 
to ask for a moratorium on biosolids until the end of the General Assembly 
session,” he said.

The proposed ordinance, drafted in part by Tom Linzey a Pennsylvania lawyer 
hired by the citizens group, challenges corporate constitutional rights and 
more than 130 years of Supreme Court case law precedence. It’s an 
interesting argument, but it’s one that should be made to the legislature, 
which holds the authority to say what counties can and cannot do.

So if the state says the spreading of biosolids is legal, there’s nothing 
the counties can do to prevent it. The Virginia Department of Health is in 
charge of enforcing the rules for biosolids haulers.

Linzey says he has helped dozens of small rural communities in Pennsylvania 
pass ordinances similar to the Campbell proposal restricting corporations 
from spreading biosolids. Interestingly, he said no sludge ordinance drafted 
by his organization has been challenged in court.

It’s not likely the Campbell proposal would stand up in court, if 
challenged. That’s because the state and the state legislature have said 
spreading biosolids is lawful.

What Linzey and the Citizens Against Toxic Sludge need to do is persuade the 
Assembly that counties should have the right to say yes or no to the spread 
of the stuff. That would clear up this debate and the put the question where 
it belongs - with the people and their local government representatives.

This story can be found at: 
http://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=LNA/MGArticle/LNA_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149192653481&path=