THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410070300
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: On The Street
SOURCE: Bill Reed
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
A cynic - probably some newspaper wise guy - once likened voters to mushrooms.
Politicians are always keeping them in the dark and feeding 'em lots of horse manure.
Now comes the news that the city Agriculture Department is promoting the use of that same natural fertilizer to grow mushrooms. Just shows you how far-sighted those folks at City Hall really are.
And where, you ask, will this product come from?
Why, from all those thoroughbreds that will canter into Virginia Beach once the State Racing Commission decides to put the race track here.
Think of it. Mounds of manure manufactured right here in the resort city would be the chief by-product of parimutuel racing. Virginia Beach could become the mushroom capital of the world!
The home-grown dung deposit could be used to build a major new industry - fertilizing tons of white button mushrooms for gourmands across the nation and beyond.
The idea recently leaped from the fertile brain of Louis Cullipher, director of the city's Agriculture Department, who visualizes the mushroom caper as a profitable way of disposing of volumes of equine waste.
You figure there are 150 racing days each year and local accommodations for up to 1,500 horses. Add the two figures. Multiply by the bales of hay needed to feed the animals; factor in the number of horse farms in the city and - Voila! - you have arrived at the Virginia Beach equine guadoo quotient.
We're talking mountains of horse manure and nowhere to dispose of it, except maybe on mushroom farms.
Now, if the mushroom industry does not materialize as planned, Cullipher comes up with Plan B: bagging the manure and selling it as fertilizer, which is really a better idea in the long run.
To illustrate the point, let me ask you if you have been to your local nursery or hardware store lately to buy a bag of fertilizer. No? Well, the prices strongly suggest that the contents of these bags include a high percentage of diamond dust or gold flakes.
An announcement from the state racing commission is expected this week and it will determine which Virginia locality will get the track. There will be only one in the state, at least for now.
According to the grapevine, Virginia Beach is bringing up the rear in a three-way race for the facility. The apparent leader is New Kent County, a rolling and largely rural area between Richmond and Williamsburg along the York River.
In case Virginia Beach loses to its rivals, residents here should be aware that the resort city doesn't have to take a back seat to anybody in its quest for a major mushroom or fertilizer operation.
The city has its own limitless and untapped supply of horse manure. Yessir, the stockpile has been here and growing geometrically since the city became a city in 1963.
And what's the source? you ask. Why, the City Council, of course.
The honorables have been manufacturing the stuff and a gaseous by-product in vast quantities for 31 years.
In all that time, nobody could decide whether to bag it or bottle it and the citizens have been unable to think of a way to use it for their own benefit until Cullipher arrived with a plan.
While exact figures don't appear in the ``World Almanac'' or ``The Encyclopedia Britannica,'' to validate the claim, it's almost a lead-pipe cinch that no governing body this side of Congress can crank out the quantities of horse manure that the Virginia Beach council does.
Production of this sort could turn the Sahara into a leafy Eden, grow alfalfa on the frozen tundra or turn lonely and barren Mars into a lush and welcome habitat for humans. by CNB