THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 12, 1996 TAG: 9606120539
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: 62 lines
Smithfield Foods Inc. must implement an environmental accord that should end the meat-packing giant's decades-long practice of dumping hog wastes into the Pagan River, the state Water Control Board ruled Tuesday.
By a unanimous vote, the board instructed Smithfield Foods, one of the largest pork processors in the nation, to begin piping its millions of gallons of pollution-laden wastes to a sewage treatment plant in Suffolk by June 25, or face possible penalties.
State officials and environmentalists applauded the decision, saying that after 19 years of fighting and cajoling the $3 billion company, an end to one of Virginia's worst water-pollution problems appears at hand.
``We're just glad to finally get this behind us,'' Tom Hopkins, director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, said after the vote.
Under the accord, signed in 1991 but contested last month by Smithfield's lawyers, an estimated 1.2 million gallons of wastes produced each day at the Gwaltney hog plant in Isle of Wight County will be sent to a sewage plant in Suffolk run by the Hampton Roads Sanitation District.
The wastes, which contain contaminants such as ammonia, metals, fecal coliform and phosphorus, will undergo chemical filtering before being released into the lower James River.
The second phase of the accord calls for an additional 1.5 million gallons from the neighboring Smithfield Packing plant to travel to Suffolk for treatment via a new 17-mile pipeline.
This phase won't take effect until later this year, probably by November, and should end all hog-waste discharges into the Pagan River, said James Borberg, HRSD's general manager.
In a petition last month, Jim Ryan, a Richmond attorney representing Smithfield Foods, argued that connecting to HRSD should be delayed 18 months, or until the Suffolk facility is fully upgraded and expanded.
Ryan said that HRSD will not have its high-tech, phosphorus-filtering equipment in place until 1998. To require Smithfield Foods to connect before then, Ryan said, would be premature.
The delay would have saved Smithfield Foods an estimated $150,000 a month in sewage bills - nearly $3 million over the 18 month period.
The state Water Control Board rejected these arguments Tuesday and even chastised Ryan for requesting the delay.
Ryan told the board that Smithfield Foods would not likely make the connection by the June 25 deadline, but would do so ``within a week or two'' after that.
Since 1977, the state has taken Smithfield Foods to court twice, threatened to sue four other times and issued eight consent orders, all trying to force compliance with anti-pollution laws, said Bert W. Parolari, a senior state environmental engineer who has worked on the case for years.
Since May 1994, Parolari said, the Smithfield Packing and Gwaltney pork processing plants have violated state clean-water regulations 54 times, including 47 excessive levels of fecal coliform, a bacteria found in the feces of warm-blooded animals.
The Pagan River has been closed to shellfish harvesting since 1970 due to high levels of fecal coliform. ILLUSTRATION: WHY TREAT PAGAN RIVER POLLUTION?
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KEYWORDS: ENVIRONMENT WATER POLLUTION HOG WASTE by CNB