
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 15, 1991                   TAG: 9103150919
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

TREATMENT PLANT PLANS UPSET TWO GROUPS AT LAKE

State Water Control Board assurances that a new sewage treatment plant in Rocky Mount would not pollute Smith Mountain Lake have not satisfied two lake groups.

The Smith Mountain Lake Policy Advisory Board and Lake Association say they will continue monitoring state licensing requirements for a treatment plant Rocky Mount wants to build on the Pigg River.

Under preliminary requirements, the plant would be designed to handle 2 million gallons per day and to remove at least 93 percent of organic matter. The current plant is required to remove only 82 percent.

Though the new plant would improve water quality, the lake groups believe the water board should hold the town of Rocky Mount to the same stringent standards as Roanoke.

"It seems to us that if you modernize it, you ought to modernize it completely," said Bob Halwk, president of the Smith Mountain Lake Association.

Members of the Policy Advisory Board, which met Thursday night, also voiced concern about effluent dumped into the Pigg River.

The Pigg River flows into Leesville Lake, a reservoir that serves as a holding basin for the Smith Mountain dam pump-back system. Some believe that water from the Pigg River could be pumped back into Smith Mountain Lake and harm water quality in the upper reservoir.

Last month, water board regional director Neal Obenshain said there was no conclusive evidence that Pigg River water is pumped into the lake.

In any event, he said, water from the Pigg River would have a beneficial effect because its phosphorus content is lower than that of the Roanoke and Blackwater rivers, which flow into the lake.

by CNB