Recognizing sludge storage as an "alternative" land use for farmers facing dwindling options, I hold grave reservations about the safety and efficacy of current use and policy.  At the front of my concerns are that the DEQ now forbids the substance to be dumped in the ocean--if it's not safe for the water, why is it safe for the land (and, yes, it's inevitable seepage into the water  table)?  Why do the states of origin, such as New York, ban it, yet the Commonwealth of Va sees fit to not only store it but risk the health and well-being of its citizens and tax-payers by spreading it onto food crops and pasture for food stock?  Why does the Commonwealth allow properties bordering storage sites plummet in value because of the stench, the vehicular activity, and biological threats?  This seems as much a violation of our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as any.

Until these questions are answered, thoroughly and scientifically, it is ithe only moral choice to offer localities the opportunity regulate sites affecting their citizens, their tax payers, their land values.  I am appalled that our elected bodies and its departments--i.e. the Dept. of Health--have so easily served up our health and well-being and the safety of our food supply. 

Nan Carmack, Forest, Virginia