Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 28, 1992 TAG: 9203300176
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG and GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Sludge is a part of Tech Professor Lee Daniels' life these days, but he does not rely on it for his livelihood, he says. In past months, Daniels has been accused by Wise County citizens of prostituting himself. The citizens don't want the sludge imported from Northern cities and spread over the barren lands left behind by mining.
He is a professor, he tells them. His salary is paid by the state, not by the coal companies, who admittedly stand to benefit if the sewage can make this aching land rich again.
The citizens, who successfully fought off an attempt a few years back to import Northern garbage into the county, see the sludge as a similar threat. But Daniels calls it fertilizer. And he has been studying the subject, almost to death, he says, for a decade.
Daniels has been studying the use of sludge to reclaim strip-mined land at the Powell River Project, which involves research into reclamation of mined land north of Norton. In order to continue the research, Daniels needs a waiver from Wise County's solid-waste ordinance.
A waiver was easily obtained from the Board of Supervisors for the first phase of the project a few years back. But getting the county's permission may not be so easy this time around.
A few lonely voices that originally opposed the sludge have started screaming, and "now there's a lot of them out there," says County Administrator Scott Davis. A citizens' group organized to fight the sludge has put its motto on a button: "We don't need this s--t."
Davis said he doesn't know whether the county will allow the research to continue or not. A public hearing still has to be held on the issue, he said.
The county's Republican board of supervisors was replaced with a Democratic board in last fall's election. Several board members also are members of the United Mine Workers union - not natural allies of the coal companies that would benefit from Tech's research.
Davis is new in his job and both he and the supervisors know little of what Tech has been doing at Powell River. "We're trying to find out if this is a good thing or not," Davis said.
So this morning Tech researchers will put on what Daniels calls "a dog and pony show" for the board at the county courthouse and then take the board out to Powell River to look at what has been done.
If the board allows it, Daniels hopes to put sludge on the last open piece of land by the river in a few months. He wants to try it on other mines around the county to see how it works in different geologic conditions.
"The first time we did this was in 1982, a study sponsored by the U.S. Office of Surface Mining," he said. "We were using sewage sludge to help rebuild the topsoil." That year, it was sludge from Wise County that was used on a small plot of land - about 10 to 20 feet.
Tech studied the land for seven years, and at the end of that time, tried a larger hunk of land - 150 acres near the Powell River.
Tech has been working on several projects associated with the Powell River, dealing with the various problems affecting Virginia's seven coal counties. The projects include research and education programs that address economic, land use and social concerns.
You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who didn't agree that it's a priority to help the land here. But to get enough sludge for this particular project, Tech had to look outside the coalfields, Daniels said.
And importing waste is a subject that breeds controversy.
Tech found a sludge from Philadelphia, low on heavy metals, through Enviro-Gro Technologies, a sludge management firm.
Sludge is the concentrated solid material left behind after sewage has been treated.
Daniels said there had been articles in the local paper, public hearings and public notices with no complaints.
But the day 50,000 tons of the stuff came rolling into Wise County on trucks, trouble started. When the trucks came in, people started asking questions. And the sludge, so to speak, hit the fan.
"There was a public reaction, petitions, a lot of media coverage. There was some concern about whether we were poisoning the world up there," Daniels said.
Other states have been using this practice - Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois. "But it's new to Southwest Virginia," Daniels said.
The deal Tech cut was this: Researchers would not treat another acre of land for two years. They would monitor the site, check the watersheds, study the vegetation when it finally grew. They would make sure there was no contamination.
They have done enough studies on that land to know it is safe, they say.
Now, the two years are up, and Tech is ready to try the procedure on different geologic sites - 10 to 12 of them, Daniels said. Because of the long process for issuing permits, he'll be lucky to get to the new land by summer.
"There needs to be a lot of study and control before I can give it a stamp and say, `Tech endorses this for all land.' Today, I can't say that. But I have no doubt that with the right approach and controls, this can be perfectly safe."
The project helps recycle sludge that would otherwise sit in a hole in the ground. "And then everyone would end up paying," Daniels said.
***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on March 29, 1992.
In a story Saturday about Virginia Tech's research into the use of sewage sludge to reclaim strip mines, a Tech researcher was incorrectly quoted as having called a planned demonstration for the Wise County Board of Supervisors "a dog and pony show." The quote should have been attributed to the county administrator. A reporter made the error.
Memo: CORRECTION