DATE: Friday, September 26, 1997            TAG: 9709260815

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: RICHMOND                          LENGTH:   45 lines

CAPE CHARLES MUST CONTROL ITS SEWAGE PLANT'S AMMONIA RELEASES

The town of Cape Charles must upgrade its sewage treatment plant to better control ammonia from polluting the Chesapeake Bay, according to a cleanup agreement approved Thursday by the State Water Control Board.

The agreement requires Cape Charles, a small community on the southern tip of Virginia's Eastern Shore, to install equipment and modernize its plant to cut ammonia releases to environmentally safe levels by September 1998.

Failure to meet the terms and deadlines could result in state prosecution, said David Gussman, an enforcement chief who negotiated the agreement for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

Town Manager Donald Clarke said the upgrade should cost ``a couple hundred thousands dollars'' and now is being designed by an engineering consultant. ``We think we'll be on schedule, or perhaps even finish a little early,'' Clarke said.

Also Thursday, the board fined an Eastern Shore crab processor $1,000 for failing to report the amount and type of wastes the small company has discharged into Back Creek, a Chesapeake Bay tributary, for two years.

Nandua Seafood Co. of Hacksneck, in Accomack County, agreed to the fine and must begin quarterly sampling and reporting of its wastes. Consisting mostly of crab entrails, grease and detergent, the wastes are not expected to cause much environmental harm but nonetheless must be regulated, Gussman said.

Ammonia from the Cape Charles sewage plant can have a more detrimental ecological effect. For one, ammonia is a toxic compound; it also contains nitrogen, a nutrient that - along with phosphorus - is being targeted by leaders across the mid-Atlantic seeking to revive the ailing Chesapeake Bay.

The state said the Cape Charles plant had caused ``moderate'' environmental damage. ``There were no major fish kills or anything,'' Gussman said, ``but when you're dealing with a toxic like ammonia, you have to be careful.''

The plant has been in trouble before. Cape Charles was fined $5,000 in 1990 after state investigators determined that excessive levels of fecal coliform were being released.

The plant operator at the time, Rodney Lewis, later was indicted and pleaded guilty in federal court to allowing the illegal discharges to continue.

During his trial, it was revealed that Lewis often would carve duck decoys while on the job. He was fired in 1991.

The plant handles the sewage of all 1,300 residents of Cape Charles.

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