State Regulators: Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ)

Virginia’s DEQ is in charge of administering the law regarding sludge, including creating regulations and rules around permits. DEQ has a long history of dismissing citizen concerns and favoring the industry. Regarding PFAS, it is taking a wait-and-see approach, saying it will follow any new guidance the EPA issues, but won’t take action on its own.

There is an opportunity to put serious pressure on DEQ, however, by engaging en masse in the public comment process. Every time a company wants to spread sewage sludge in a county, it has to apply for a VPA permit from DEQ. When those applications are open for public comment, they are posted on DEQ’s Virginia Pollution Abatement (VPA) page, and the comment period lasts 30 days.

If enough people submit comments that request a public hearing, then DEQ will hold a public hearing about that particular permit application. Public hearings are very important. They slow down the permitting process, provide a public forum in which neighbors can voice their concerns, provide an opportunity for media coverage and an opportunity to educate the public about biosolids more broadly.

Participate

• DEQ accepts comments on permit applications via email and not through a public portal, so the comments of others are not easily accessible to the public. Click on each application notice on the VPA page to find the email address of the person in charge of that permit. Also, cc Neil Zahradka, (neil.zahradka@deq.virginia.gov) the long-time manager of the state’s biosolids program.

  Comments Are Needed! 25 unique comments are required before DEQ will consider a public hearing on permit applications. First, to write your best comment, familiiarize yourself with the permit documents posted on the VPA site, so you have a sense of exactly where the spreading will occur and the scope of what is proposed.

  Your comments must follow these 5 rules, or they will not count!

  In order for each comment to count toward that goal of 25, it must:
  
  1. Include this information:
  a. The applicant name and permit number, which you can find in the description of each county’s permit application listed on this page. The applicant is the sludge spreader, e.g., Synagro, and the permit number always starts with “VPA.”
  b. The name and postal address or email address of the commenter (that’s you).

  2. Ask for a Public Hearing and say Why one is needed The main purpose of your letter is to get that public hearing, so don’t forget to ask for it (or demand it)! You also need to state a reason why. You could say, for example, that you think your neighbors need the opportunity to hear more from DEQ and from the public about the proposed permit, or you think DEQ needs to hear more from the public about this topic, in a live, public forum. It’s best to make this your first sentence, as in: “I am writing to request a public hearing on this permit application, because…”

  3. Describe the interest of the commenter DEQ wants a “brief informal statement” that describes you would be personally and negatively impacted by this particular permit. This needs to be true and as personal as possible. You may not live in the county you‘re writing about, but here are some examples of ways you could be connected to that place: If you have family or friends in the county; if you visit there, or stop there on the way to somewhere else; if you eat food that’s grow on a farm there; or if the water flowing out of that county affects your home county or another place you visit regularly. Write in first person and relate your interests to biosolids. For example, “When I visit x County, I want to know my family is safe from PFAS and other highly mobile toxins present in biosolids.”

  4. Raise “substantial, disputed issues relevant to the permit” For example, you could mention that the permit fails to control contamination to the environment and the food chain from PFAS, microplastics, and pharmaceuticals that would almost certainly result from spreading biosolids, because there are no state or federal regulations governing those substances in biosolids, even though testing has shown them present in almost all biosolids. You could mention that because DEQ does not require testing biosolids for these substances, we are left unable to know whether this practice is safe or not.

  5. Make it unique. DEQ requires 25 “unique” comments. You can use other people’s letters for ideas and use a template as a guide. But ultimately, you have to make the letter your own, in order for it to count.
  
  Subscribe to the Potomac Riverkeeper Network newsletter list for updates and help with commenting.

• Additionally, whenever DEQ proposes changes to its rules, including those regarding biosolids and clean water, or announces public hearings, those will be posted for public comment on the Virginia Regulatory Town Hall website. The site is clunky and hard to navigate, but you can register and sign up for alerts as well as post comments that will become part of the public record and read the comments of others. Read this Town Hall User Manual for help using the system.