FRANKLIN LIFTS WASTE-WATER SLUDGE BAN

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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 17, 1993                   TAG: 9303170299
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT                                LENGTH: Short
FRANKLIN LIFTS WASTE-WATER SLUDGE BAN
A four-year ban on out-of-county waste-water sludge was repealed Tuesday night after some Franklin County farmers said the pretreated human waste helps their crops.
"I've never seen a better form of plant food in my life," said Gary Dudley, a Franklin County farmer. "I've never been able to get any fertilizer commercially that comes close to providing the nutrients that this does."
The Board of Supervisors lifted the ban at the request of Bio Gro Systems, an Annapolis, Md., waste-management company. Bio Gro officials say 27 Franklin County farmers with 10,500 acres of land want to use the sludge as fertilizer; in-county sludge would only be enough to fertilize 500-750 acres.
The supervisors lifted the ban after Bio Gro representatives agreed to pay the cost of a monthly sludge sample. That sample would give the county independent verification of samples Bio Gro takes as its trucks leave the Roanoke waste-water treatment facility.
The ban on out-of-county sludge was enacted in 1989. Some Gladehill residents had complained of the odor after sludge was applied to a farm near an apartment complex there.
A couple of farmers at Tuesday evening's public hearing took it upon themselves to explain the nature of their business.
"Food is not produced by good-smelling stuff," Dudley said. "The food smells pretty good when it is produced, but along the way some pretty bad-smelling stuff is put under it."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB