This is insanity. Over the last few years, documented fish kills on the Shenandoah, Jackson and James Rivers, to name a few, have been tied to the increased use of sludge as a fertilizer on watersheds in these rivers. if the increased pollution generated by runoff from these treated areas is killing fish, what else is it doing to to the users downstream.

This is not using sludge as fertilizer, it is using rivers as waste disposal dumps.  Your agency is charged with protecting rivers, and the environment as a whole, not protecting the financial interest of a few well connected industrial chicken farmers.  To even consider loosening the standards, weak as they are, borders on the criminal.  These standards should be tightened to the point that the industrial farmers should be required to dispose of the waste in a safe, non-polluting, non-health endangering manner, and this disposal cost should be born by those who generate the waste, as a cost of doing business.

It is time that political considerations are put aside and common sense is applied to the use of our Commonwealths waters, lands and air.  I hope that you will agree that sludge is a problem that does not need to be visited upon our waters, not a solution for a few politically well connected businessmen.