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

DATE: SUNDAY, May 2, 1993                   TAG: 9304300095
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY  
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

IF YOU'RE A COMPOSTER, YOU'LL LIKELY LOVE JIM'S BUGS

May, a research associate with Virginia Tech's department of crop and soil environmental science, was among the speakers at a yard-waste composting research and demonstration project at the Ingles Mountain Landfill recently.

"We view this as a phase in our waste-reduction program," said Charles Maus, executive director of the New River Resource Authority.

Any leaves, grass clippings or woody wastes that can be turned into compost instead of being buried will save that much landfill space, he said. If municipal wastes eventually can be composted as well, he said, it could eliminate 30 to 40 percent of the authority's waste stream.

Will Mastin of the state's new Department of Environmental Quality - which incorporated the former air, water and waste management agencies - hoped the consolidation would speed the process of getting permits for projects such as this one.

He said his department is looking for markets for compost and pointed out that a 10 percent tax credit is available for those who produce it successfully.

Greg Evanylo, associate professor with Tech's environmental science department, said many landfill managers are finding 10 years or less time remaining in the life of their landfills. And, with new environmental regulations, it could cost $300,000 an acre for new ones to get rid of solid waste.

"It doesn't all have to be buried," Evanylo said, if programs like these can find ways of reusing organic waste materials.

But it all comes down to those bugs that May talked about.

Microscopic organisms already live in the organic materials, May explained. They eat and thrive and break waste down into products that can be used, he said.

Their activities also raise the temperature of compost piles high enough to get rid of insect larvae, plant pathogens, weed seeds and other undesirable elements before the compost is used.

"The bugs do that for us. Their life processes are what raise the temperature," he said.

But they need a certain amount of moisture, a particular ratio of carbon to nitrogen, and other niceties.

"We're trying to make it a happy situation for these critters to do their job," May said. "They're the ones that are doing the work."

The experimental composting facility is a joint venture of the authority, Virginia Tech, Appalachian Regional Commission and Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.