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County Supervisors, facing outcry, keep ban on sludge

Facing a strong public outcry at its meeting Monday evening, the Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors dropped its plan to lift the county’s long-standing ban on land application of sewage sludge, and voted to begin writing a new ordinance to regulate and monitor its use.

Amid a standing-room-only crowd at the county courthouse, more than two dozen citizens rose to speak in opposition to the supervisors’ tentative plan–developed in a closed meeting a month ago–to lift the ban on sludge and to defer any action on a regulatory ordinance. Citing the dangers that sludge poses to human health, animals, streams and wells, and even property values, speaker after speaker urged the county to keep the ban on sludge in place at least until a strict ordinance regulating and monitoring its use can be enacted.

The county placed a moritorium on spreading sludge on farmland or forests in Rappahannock in 1984, and enacted a formal ordinance banning the sewage product in 1994. The county successfully defended that ban againist lawsuits in Federal court, but a 2001 Virginia Supreme Court decision ruled, in a case involving Amelia County’s similar ordinance, that counties cannot ban land application of sludge because the state of Virginia permits it.

“The Virginia Supreme Court said the county cannot forbid what the state allows, or allow what the state forbids,” Peter Luke, commonwealth’s attorney for the county, told the crowd before the public hearing began. In defending the ban in court, Luke said, “We won the battles but we lost the war.”

But when the public comment period was opened, it became clear that many in the audience feel that the war is not over, and they want to continue fighting. (See our editorial, “A People’s Uprising”–click on Opinion heading under Departments.)

Hal Creel, whose property in the county adjoins that of the Manwaring family, which is seeking to apply sludge to its land, said he considers his neighbors “honorable stewards” of the land, but he is concerned about the risks sludge poses to health and the environment. “My concern is not the biological stuff, it’s the PCBs and heavy metals” often found in sludge, he said. “These don’t break down–they concentrate. What happens after 10 years? Does this go down in my well?” He told the supervisors, “It may be legal, but it is your job to make it as safe for us as it can be.”

Carl Coon, another resident who lives nearby along the Thornton river, which crosses the Manwaring property, said, “I am concerned that I’ll wind up with pathogens in my well, or in the Thornton River….You guys have to do anything you can to see that we are protected.”

The dangers that toxins in sludge pose to animals were cited by Joyce Harman, a county veteriniarian. She told of the case of sludge being applied to the property of people she knows that raise horses. “Over the next two or three years, they had problems” in breeding, she said. The sludge, applied on high ground, ran down on their lowland pastures after a heavy deluge of rain, affecting the horses’ pastures, she said.

Emery Lazar, a county resident who retired from the federal Environmental Protection Agency and who has studied the health risks of sludge, told the board that the EPA regulations on sludge use give “insufficient” weight to health hazards and pollution of ground water. Lazar, who was deeply involved in helping draft a sludge regulatory ordinance that the supervisors tabled in 2001, said: “I urge the board to enact a very stringent county ordinance….Do not be overly concerned about being sued. Being sued is not the end of the world.”

Paul Farmer, president of the Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection, said lifting the county’s ban on sludge now would “send the wrong message” to sludge applicators and to land owners. Before lifting the ban, an ordinance calling for “strong regulation” of sludge should be enacted, he said. This should include a local permitting process, public notice, and a provision that any use of sludge be recorded on the permanent land records of the county, so that any prospective buyer of a property would know if the land has ever had sludge spread on it.

Tom Tepper, a member of the county Planning Commission from Stonewall-Hawthorne district, noted that the commission carefully studied the sludge issue five years ago and sent to the Board of Supervisors a strict regulatory ordinance that the supervisors never enacted. “Sludge is toxic,” Tepper said. “It will adversely affect wildlife, the ground water, and human health. Before repealing the ban, the supervisors should adopt strict regulation, he said. “Not having an ordinance on the books sends the message that the citizens of Rappahannock County do not care about sludge. I can assure you that they do care.”

Without any ordinance of its own, application of sludge in Rappahannock County would be governed solely by state rules and monitoring. County resident Charles Fortuna warned the board that state regulation is “poor.” He cited a report to the Virginia legislature which said that of 1,100 applications of sludge in a recent year, only 19 applications were actually inspected by Virginia Department of Health inspectors. The health department has only two inspectors for the entire state, and oversight is minimal, he said.

Other speakers urged the supervisors to take an even stronger stand. Monira Rifaat, a Sperryville-area cattle farmer who is a candidate for the open Piedmont District seat on the Board of Supervisors, said, “Don’t repeal the ban” on sludge. As she talks to voters in her district, she added, “People are saying to me, we don’t want it. Don’t rescind the ban. Let us stand up to these corporations who want to dump urban sludge on our pastures!”

David Konick, a local attorney who once served as County Administrator, spoke toward the end of the meeting. “I haven’t heard one argument here tonight for taking the ban away,” Konick said. “I think the county ought to be more aggressive. If you get sued, great! This deserves to be litigated.” He urged the supervisors to “spend some money on this” by hiring expert witnesses and attorneys to defend a county ban or strict regulation. “Put up a fight!” he said, to strong applause from the audience.

The message from the audience was so strong that Larry Manwaring, a Fauquier county member of the family that owns the Red Oak Ranch lands that propose to use sludge as fertilizer, complained, “This is a one-sided hearing….You are only hearing one side–a somewhat hysterical side” of the argument. “We can’t pretend that we live in a fairy land without sludge,” he said. His brother, Jim Manwarinig, who lives on the farm where the sludge would be applied, took a more moderate tone earlier in the hearing. He said he is concerned about the risks. “I would strongly encourage the county to adopt measures to monitor it,” he said. “I am in no hurry to do this….I want to give the county plenty of time to study this and adopt an ordinance.”

After more than an hour of public comments, it became clear that the Supervisors had already concluded that lifting the ban and not considering a regulatory ordinance was a mistake. After brief discussion, supervisor Ron Frazier of Jackson district made a motion to table the repeal of the sludge ban and to appoint citizens to a study committee to draft an ordinance to regulate and monitor land application of sludge. The study group, which is expected to include a representative of RLEP and RappFLOW, a local organization concerned with county water resources, will work with County Administrator John McCarthy and attorney Peter Luke, to draft an ordinance for the board to consider at its November meeting.

McCarthy and Luke said the county has ample time to enact a regulatory ordinance before any sludge is actually spread in Rappahannock. This process will take months, McCarthy predicted, and in the end, he warned, “It is probably going to end up with sludge being spread in the county….hopefully not much.”

–James P. Gannon

Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006, by James P. Gannon and is filed under "News & Commentary ". You can leave a response here, or send a Trackback from your own site.