Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 4 · column 3 of 6 · from the scan, no model involved
Solution On Sludge
To the editor:
I am writing this week concerning the board of supervisor’s hearing on April 1 on the subject of sewage sludge.
I support the idea of a moratorium on the land use application of sewage sludge provided that there is actually going to be a study made on this issue. Our study will only be as good as the personnel making the study. If done properly as something of this magnitude and environmental impact should be done, I’m sure the facts will show that it would be very foolish to allow sewage to be imported into Rappahannock County.
One thing worries me. If our two sister counties, Loudoun and Fauquier, with all their wealth and political force cannot keep out these contract haulers of metropolitan human waste, what will prevent them from dumping their trucks here? Answer: a strong board of supervisor’s decision to put aside any personal interest in the treatment of their own properties (as has been the case in the above counties) and say to these rude, selfish, uncaring and unclean sludge spreaders “No importation of foreign sludge!”
Now, just the mention of sludge in some social circles brings out disgust of the subject. And it is a fact that in “Big” Washington for years they have ignored two very big problems: 1) the Soviet Union and 2) their own waste. Ignoring a problem long enough will not make it go away, it only worsens it.
Let’s take a simple math course. According to Mr. George Pastuer of Blue Plains Treatment Plant (767-8702) February production of sludge at Blue Plains was 2,0^ tons a day. Mr. Pastuer informed me that there were two contract haulers who between themselves trucked out of Blue Plains Plant 52,396 tons during the month of February alone. Now allowing an average of 23 tons per truck load (tractor/trailer - and some trailers are of all steel construction where others have aluminum frames and bodies which allow them to gross more weight because of their lighter empty weight) this computes to 2,278 truck loads. Taking into consideration that weather did not permit hauling seven days a week, we will allow 20 working days to remove this sludge at 113-9 tractor-trailer loads a day.
The amount of sludge produced
92.6%