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TO THE ANNOYANCE of some public officials, warnings have been sounded in this space from time to time about the pitfalls of “regional’’governmental alliances. . ^
As constituted in Virginia, we are always assured, regional arrangements are purely advisory. Besides—and here comes the clincher—if you don’t join a regional grouping, you can’t qualify for a lot of big Federal and State grants.
Well, Loudoun County is in one of those planning regions, and because it is, it is being presented with some pretty horrible prospects. Leesburg— another member of the “region”—has a set of town officials who are determined that their community ' shall grow, and grow, and grow. Leesburg has already done so much growing that its sewer plant is about to overflow, and the town was a major catalyst in having a regional sewer “scheme” drawn up.
“Scheme” is the word for it, too—we mean the word as Americans use it, denoting something sinister and unwelcome, and not as our British cousins and planning brethern use it, as a synonym for “plan.” Starting with Leesburg’s problem, the consulting engineers hired by the region have come up with some beauts. One “scheme” calls for spraying partially treated sewage effluent o^er thousands of acres in the Loudoun Valley. Another calls for a system of staggeringly expensive treatment plants and storage reservoirs all over the place. The plans are predicated on a likelihood .of some 4000,000 persons by the year 2000, almost a quadrupling of the area’s present population.
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