SLUDGE VICTIMS

educational meeting!'
According to Wilson, sludge is sometimes stored on farms in Orange until the weather is right for spreading it. 'We have a lot of hand-dug wells that are only 28 or 30 feet deep. If people get sick, what's the county going to do? . . . . It's only the last three or four or five years they've been hauling it in here. The majority of people are against it."

Wilson said he would be proposing this week in Orange, as he has been for years, a $5-per-ton tipping fee to be used for testing, with any extra to go into the general fund. "Cities are paying $500 to $700 per load to trucking companies to get rid of this stuff. 'What's another hundred bucks?"

Martin said Orange would be discussing this week whether to begin charging a fee for the permit application process.

Other localities
Other localities in the U.S. have instituted a "tipping fee," which is paid by sludging companies and used to test and monitor their actions.

In Rush Township in Centre County, Pa., this fee is $40 per ton and is used for testing. A sample ordinance drawn up in Pennsylvania and offered as a model for any locality calls for having each ton of sludge tested for "chemical composition."

The locality's enforcement officer is to take a sample and send it to a lab employed by the locality prior to each application. The ordinance requires a per-ton tipping fee to be paid quarterly.
Noncompliance on two occasions results in "a permanent ban on any further land application of biosolids by that person or corporation; and the payment of financial penalties as delineated in this ordinance.'

All testing results are to be made public within 10 days. The ordinance does not specify what "chemical components"' to test for, but gives the locality 30 days to produce a list.

A major hurdle any locality will face that wants to monitor the safety of sludging operations is determining what to test for. The EPA is not of much help in this regard, judging by its Inspector General's recent report.

Testing of dangers from airborne material is, in particular, an uncharted territory, according to Henry Staudinger, a retired lawyer from Shenandoah who has spent the past five years studying and opposing sludge use.

Speakers at the Board of Supervisors meeting
At last week's Board of Supervisors' meeting, three people spoke from the floor on the subject of biosolids. The first was Doyne Shrader, a Stevensburg resident whose problems with a contaminated well were discussed in the Culpeper News March 16 and are further detailed in an accompanying article today. Shrader asked the board for a public investigation of the cause of the well's contamination. And he urged "anyone who lives in or around land where biosolids are applied to have their well tested and see their doctor for possible exposure to harmful chemical contaminants and bacteria."

The second speaker was Scott Handshy, who called the board's attention to the recent audit report on the EPA by the agency's Inspector General. This report concludes, "EPA does not have an effective program for ensuring compliance with the land application requirements of Part 503 (the EPA's own standards for sludge disposal]."

Handshy asked the supervisors, "If EPA can't themselves monitor regulations they've established, how can the state of Virginia or Culpeper County? I've asked the state and I've asked each of you for the science on this and I've received nothing. The meeting (on March 15) was a paid political advertisement . . . . I challenge you to present the other side."