Objectives

Objectives of this blog

This blog is an attempt to present and maintain an indexed, hyperlinked, chronological soliloquy of issues, arguments, and opinions related to the use of treated sewage sludge in Virginia. But since sludging Virginia has so many points in common with sludging the rest of the country, which, or course, includes Canada, the geographical limitations of the blog are somewhat imaginary. It's just that a bumper sticker "America is for sludgers," while certainly accurate, lacks the taunting irony that comes with spoofing "Virginia is for lovers."

It has been my experience as a grunt in the sludge war (See war stories) that there is so much information zinging around, it is impossible to keep track of it all. Consequently, the main objective of this blog is to provide a web site for sludge-warriors fighting from on both sides of the latrine, a website where they can find an index to the major issues, players, legislation, etc. It is going to take some time to build up this resource, after all, I do have to make a living during the day, but I hope my readers will make my task easier and more interesting by providing me with fresh topics, sludge news, insights, and leaked documents from the EPA and CIA.

A word about my own personal position on the sludge issue to give you an idea of where I'm coming from. As a lawyer, it is my understanding of the U.S. Constitution and the federal Clean Water Act that the local governments have the final word on how sludge is to be disposed of inside their own political boundaries. If a local board of supervisors votes to allow land application of sludge, then that's the end of the issue for that county -- until, of course, the next elections come around. For it is through these local elections that each person has an input into the decision as to whether sludge is to be spread in his/her county. But if a county's governing body says no land application of sludge, then the Clean Water Act backs up this decision and the state has no authority to over-rule it. That is my reading and understanding of the intent of the Clean Water Act. I am up to my belly-button in this legal issue at the moment and will be discussing it at very great length in the blog.

Then there's the technical/safety point of view, which we have to focus on given the reality of sludge applications in Virginia's counties, and given the cowardice of county board of supervisors to assert their rights under the Clean Water Act (and I'm thinking particularly of the Amherst County Board of Supervisors). I believe sludge is a temporary problem just waiting for technology to catch up to it. Within in 20 years it will be economically feasible for cities generating sludge to convert it to energy. I'm convinced that the way energy prices are lurching northward on the graphs, the search for cheap energy is going to solve the sludge problem sooner rather than later, and at that point, counties, rural and urban, will be begging for the stuff.

The problem in the short-term, as I see it, is how to keep the sludgers and deluded farmers from harming people and from polluting the land in perpetuity.