Misleading

Misleading

editorial?

To the Editor:

The Piedmont Environmental Council is one of the organizations that suggested Tier III designation for the two stretches of the Rappahannock River mentioned in your highly misleading editorial of April 28. Please allow us to correct your mistakes.

Yes, Tier III would mean that no additional discharges of sewage effluent could be placed in the designated stream stretch. But Tier III would not mean no additional discharge into streams emptying into the designated waters.

Tier III designation of the Rappahannock above Carter’s Run would have absolutely no impact on the future of Sperryville, Washington, or most of the other towns of Rappahannock County. Your editorial totally missed the mark in suggesting to the contrary.

Tier III designation of the Rappahannock above Carter’s Run would, we believe, be totally consistent with and supportive of the comprehensive plans of both Fauquier and Rappahannock counties, which call for the Rappahannock corridor above Carter’s Run to remain in agricultural, forestal, and environmental land uses.

A water quality initiative that will have an impact on Rappahannock County is the 40 percent “nutrient reduction strategy” of the Chesapeake Bay Agreement. This strategy is in the early stages of formulation in Virginia, so we don’t yet know how exactly it will apply.

But, in its simplest form, it would require a 40 percent reduction in phosphorous and nitrogen entering the Bay drainage from all sources in Rappahannock County — and then holding them at a constant level forever.

Again oversimplifying, that would mean a 40 percent reduction in nutrients in the Sperryville discharge — and no nutrients at all in any new discharges. From that perspective, Tier III is apiece of cake.

ROBERT T. DENNIS

President, PEC

(Editor’s note: Waters from the Rush, Covington, Thornton and Hazel Rivers join the Rappahannock River between sections recommended for Tier III status.)