I am not well versed in the subject of sluge, and am completely new to the proposed legislative action. But I am learning fast, having been alterted to the issue by local conservation organizations and informed by the comments on this site, especially the very helpful information provided by Joy Lorien, above.

However, I am a life-long user of Virginia's waterways. I am encouraged by the improvements I've seen in water quality since the enactment of clean air and clean water legislation in my youth. When I was a child, fisheries were quite threatened (my term, not a technical reference) by pollution. In the 1960's I grew up near the James River, but never saw eagles nesting, Heron rookeries, etc. Today, thanks largely to smart environmental policy decisions made about 40 years ago, river environments are surging back to health. Today, eagle sightings are becoming commonplace.

But in the current political environment, the gains of the last 40 years are eroding. When I see legislation that changes the word "sludge" to "bio-solids," I smell a linguistic cover-up. Let's face it, we are talking about putting sewage almost directly into waterways and calling it "bio-solids." 

Commenters above have done a much better job than I can of exposing the differences between humans' historical use of sewage as fertilizer and the current use of "sluge" that contains a poisonous package of pollutants. Please heed these warnings.

I would add that one only has to look at recent history to find woeful precedents that may apply to this situation. Just look at the regulatory neglect that allowed wall street to run amok and nearly ruin our economy - and here we are talking about trusting to a regulatory process to keep the dangers of sewage sludge in check. One only has to look at the current nuclear crisis in Japan to see how poorly a for profit corporation protected the Japanese public from disaster - and here we are talking about trusting to corporations to properly manage the application of sewage sludge.

Sewage sludge is not going to crash our economy or irradiate our population, but this sludge is clearly dangerous stuff. Please do not trust to a regulatory process and corporations motivated by profit to manage this. Please keep sewage sludge out of our waterways. I would like to keep enjoying the sight of Eagles and would like future generations to enjoy them also.

John Moser