Some local residents are asking the Department of Environmental Quality to stop a company from applying biosolids to area farmland. Recyc Systems Incorporated, a Virginia-based Agricultural Services Company has applied for the permit in Clarke, Shenandoah, and Warren Counties.

Some local residents have a long list of concerns with human waste being used as fertilizer. The two major concerns are the health and environmental impacts.

Henry Staudinger says 14 years ago sludge was applied to the land next to his house. He says it made him very sick, he had to make a couple of trips to the emergency room because of an allergic reaction, and he even moved out of his house for a while. Since then Staudinger has spent a lot of time trying to determine what was in the sludge. "One thing I found out is that you're never going to know what is in biosolids because they only test for a few things," says Staudinger. Staudinger has served on a panel of biosolid experts.

Recyc Systems Incorporated is requesting a permit to apply sludge from municipal sewage treatment plants to land in Shenandoah, Clarke, and Warren Counties. Gary Flory, water compliance manager of the valley office of the DEQ says nearly 100 Shenandoah County residents have submitted their concerns about the process, but he says it is safe. "There's plenty of questions that people are expressing and I think there's continuing research on those issues, but the permitting process based in the current science is that it is safe," says Flory.

Staudinger says he has spoken with people from all over Virginia who have become sick from sludge. "A lot of people have become seriously ill and no one pays attention to it, they just have no place to go," says Staudinger. "There actually have been health concerns, respiratory issues being the primary concern, complaint that I understand we've heard related to biosolids applications," says Flory.

Some also express concerns about the biosolids being applied near the floodplain of the river. "Everybody lives downstream right, essentially it would be affecting everybody downstream of those places where it would be applied," says Executive Director of Friends of the North Fork of the Shenandoah River Leslie Mitchell-Watson.

In order for a company to have permission to apply the biosolids, it must obtain a permit and have permission from the landowner. "They need to understand that they are being paid to allow their land used for waste disposal sites and they need to keep in mind what that might not only do to their own land, but may do to the land around them, their neighbors, the health of their neighbors as well and they just need to consider that because they ultimately are the ones who will determine if this material comes into our county," says Staudinger.

Shenandoah County residents have until April 2nd to submit their comments to the DEQ.