Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 30, 1994 TAG: 9409300043
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Becky Norton Dunlop got a good look at some earthworms at Virginia Tech on Thursday. She also saw a concrete vat containing cow dung, and several buckets of household waste water.
She's Virginia's secretary of natural resources. She was just doing her job.
Dunlop was in Western Virginia to learn what Tech had cooking in its agricultural research facilities. And she was impressed with what she saw.
Innovative, inexpensive ways to clean pesticide containers, an experiment in sustainable agriculture, new methods to purify household waste water - these are the kinds of solutions to environmental problems that Dunlop favors.
"I am extremely, extremely incentive-oriented. If you have any suggestions, please send them to me," she told the Tech researchers.
Dunlop also met with a group of environmental sciences students, whom she lauded as problem-solvers rather than "the crying wolf crowd." Environmental stewardship in the 1990s must employ sound science and economic analysis, she told them, repeating the themes that have marked her tenure since being appointed by Gov. George Allen.
Fielding questions about Disney's decision to pull its theme park from Haymarket, Dunlop said she was disappointed to lose what she thought would have been a good corporate citizen.
Disney was planning to use innovative pollution controls and would probably have caused less environmental damage than the subdivisions that will likely spring up on the 3,000 acres, she said. "And they would have done a lot to improve the quality of the environment in that area," she added.
After the impromptu news conference, Tech agricultural school administrators and researchers took the secretary on a whirlwind tour of their research projects, including the Kentland Farm, which is tucked in a bend of the New River in McCoy.
First, entomology Professor Don Mullins demonstrated a pesticide waste-water disposal contraption. When growers and applicators clean out pesticide containers, the rinse water often contaminates the environment.
The waste water can be flushed through absorbent material, like recycled newspaper or peat moss, Mullins said, and then through soil, where microbes break down the pesticides.
"We feel this is a procedure the grower can actually do," he said. The setup could cost as little as $600.
Field tests have eliminated up to 99 percent of some poisons, he said. His team is using earthworms as an "indicator species" to see if they pick up any residual pesticides.
Dunlop expressed concern that the Environmental Protection Agency - with which she already has done battle on several state issues - won't allow the new technique.
Her second mini-lesson came at Kentland Farm, where Professor Vivien Allen explained the ongoing experiment in sustainable agriculture. After six years, Allen and her students have seen their alternative fields produce just as much, or more, corn and other crops than conventional fields, which use more chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
The alternative system tracks and recycles almost every molecule of nutrient so as not to overload or deplete the soil. It involves more crop rotation of alfalfa, corn, wheat and millet, and allows cattle more grazing time, Allen said.
Researchers measure the nutrients in cow dung and at different parts of the farm, and spread the manure where it's needed most, Allen explained. All the manure is used.
Dunlop observed that old-time farmers used many of the same techniques, not necessarily from science but from experience and common sense.
Her last stop for the day was at a small wetland built to filter sewage from a residence. Graduate student Carla Duncan told Dunlop how the cattails and other plants feed oxygen to the water, where microbes start breaking down contaminants in the sewage.
Duncan also is experimenting with sand filters, sometimes in combination with the wetland, and different soil depths to see what works best. Sometimes the waste water still is slightly yellow, smelly and contaminated, Duncan said, showing the buckets to her visitors.
Today, Dunlop planned to conclude her Tech tour with a visit to the university's strip-mine reclamation project in Wise County.
by CNB