High school’s pollution fixes could cost taxpayers big money
By Greg Rushford
Under orders from Virginia’s environmental authorities, Rappahannock County High School has spent some $40,000 this year to correct water-pollution problems caused by the school’s aging sewage-treatment plant, and faces substantially more spending on fixing additional environmental problems. The county’s Board of Supervisors already has been warned that if the current fixes don’t solve the problems, taxpayers eventually could face a bill of perhaps $300,000 to $400,000 for a new sewage-treatment system.
Although it received scant public notice at the time, since late last year the Rappahannock County Public Schools have been operating under a consent order that requires the county to take measures aimed at “resolving certain violations” of Virginia’s water-control laws. The action by the state’s water-control board, the enforcement arm of Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality, resulted after evidence surfaced earlier in 2005 that the high school’s sewage treatment system was violating state water-control laws by discharging pathogens – including the sometimes-deadly e.coli bacteria and nitrogen-rich ammonia – in excess of legal effluent limits.
The toxic pollutants trickle out of a pipe and into a drainage ditch on school property. They ultimately wind their way to an unnamed tributary that runs into the Covington River, according to the November 18, 2005 consent order that was signed by Robert Chappell, the superintendent of county schools, and by DEQ Director Robert Burnley.
Chappell and County Administrator John McCarthy agreed to the terms of the consent order after receiving a March 7, 2005 warning letter from DEQ officials, which was followed by four additional notices of violation, the last of which was dated July 13, 2005. The local officials are credited by state environmental authorities with moving swiftly to take required remedial steps that have, at least for now, brought the discharge of effluents back into compliance with legal limits.
And while any excessive discharge of pathogens that end up in public waters is a serious matter, the good news remains that the Covington River is considered one of the cleanest in the county. Still, the problems with the high school’s sewage facility have not yet been fully resolved–and may require substantial additional spending by the county.
Environmental Systems Service Ltd., a Culpeper-based private laboratory that the county has retained to monitor the high school’s sewage system, has “concluded that due to the age of the facility a new treatment system should be constructed in the future,” the consent order notes. The school’s current system is nearly half a century old. While it is by no means a certainty that a new system will be required anytime in the next several years, McCarthy told The Rappahannock Voice that he has advised the country’s board of supervisors that a new treatment facility could cost perhaps $300,000 to $400,000. In separate interviews, Chappell and McCarthy each used words like “terrifying” and “nightmare” to describe that budgeting possibility.
Hoping to avoid the nightmare scenario, McCarthy reported that the county has spent some $40,000 this year to take various corrective actions, including the installation of a temporary recirculation system to recycle the high school’s wastewater more efficiently, the replacement of some corroded piping, and to train kitchen staff on which waste products should not be thrown down the drain. So far, the news is good. “It appears that what has been done has already made a difference,” Chappell commented.
But another costly item – a kitchen grease-trap system that the consent order specified must be completed by August 31, 2006 – has run into bidding delays and remains unresolved after the bidding process earlier this year got nowhere. “I recommended that we put $35,000 in the budget for a modified grease-trap system, but the bids came in for around $60,000,” Chappell said. “We re-bidded in August but nobody responded.”
Chappell informed the school board at its October 10 monthly meeting that the county is now evaluating a fresh bid that has recently come in. “If it is valid, the project could begin in December and be completed by the Easter vacation,” the superintendent declared.
DEQ officials say they have given the county an extension until the end of next summer to resolve the grease-trap difficulties, citing the county’s prompt remedial actions that have reduced the discharge of effluents to comply with state environmental laws. “If everybody I had to deal with were as cooperative as Bob Chappell and John McCarthy, my life would be a whole lot easier,” said DEQ enforcement specialist Carl Ciccarelli. In fact, it was the local school system’s own monthly testing performed by Culpeper’s ESS lab that first brought the problems with the sewage discharges to the attention of state regulators.
While the two county officials willingly cooperated with the DEQ, they have handled the issue with minimum public disclosure. When the county’s school budget for 2006-2007 was released last February, it included a line-item involving $60,000 for a “required RCHS [Rappahannock County High School] septic system upgrade.” There was no further explanation. On May 10 this year, the Rappahannock News reported in a column that the county school system had budgeted an increase of $60,580 for capital improvements at the high school, with the explanation that “most of this is for a state-required RCHS septic system upgrade.” That column was authored by Chappell himself.
Chappell and McCarthy say that nobody asked them for more details – but if they had been asked, they would have been willing to provide the project’s full history. When this reporter, who happened across a copy of the consent order that is posted on the DEQ’s website, asked them about it, Chappell and McCarthy discussed the order’s background without hesitation.
Greg Rushford is editor of The Rushford Report (www.RushfordReport.com) and lives in Rappahannock County.
-- AdminComments
Comment from bevhunter
Time: October 13, 2006, 11:31 pm
It is important to bring this issue to the attention of the public, although it is hard for me to imagine what an individual citizen can do about the problem, and particularly without more information about the nature of the exceedance than is provided in this article.
On the other hand, there are many more important water quality and watershed issues to bring to the attention of our community.
thanks, Bev
Comment from walterlongyear
Time: October 16, 2006, 6:09 pm
This is terrific reporting.
Providing information such as this will improve our community.
Congratulations.
Write a comment