Albemarle’s Permit Process is Underway
DEQ has publicly announced the VPA01587 permit application. The first step in the process is for DEQ to hold a public meeting, during which no public comment is taken, but members of the public may talk directly to DEQ staff and ask questions about the permit. Please join us at the meeting, if you can. It’s important that we all show up.
Monday, June 1, 2026
6:00 pm
Piedmont Virginia Community College
The Bolick Center, Event Space B
501 College Drive
Charlottesville, VA 22902
See the public notice and access the permit files at the VPA public notice page of DEQ’s website. Learn more about the permit application process and where the sewage sludge comes from on our Albemarle County page and our page for adjacent property owners.
Support a Biosolids Ordinance in Albemarle County
Biosolids = Sewage Sludge.
“Biosolids” is the industry term for treated sewage sludge from wastewater treatment plants. Sewage sludge has been proven to contain “forever chemicals” and loads of other toxins, yet it is still being spread as fertilizer on farmland in Virginia. We’re a grassroots group in Albemarle County working to change this practice and educate people about it.
Graphic by Waterkeepers Chesapeake
The Flawed Argument
There’s a lot of money to be made in the sewage sludge business. That’s why you’ll hear industry proponents always say, “PFAS are everywhere and in everything! You should worry about the PFAS in house dust, not the PFAS in biosolids!”
But that PFAS in your house, and in you, and in everything else will eventually end up in a landfill or washed down the drain to wastewater treatment plants. PFAS-contaminated leachate from landfills is trucked to those same wastewater treatment plants. It all ends up concentrated in the sewage sludge (“biosolids”) that gets spread onto farms.
From there, PFAS enters the food chain by crops taking it up and humans or livestock eating those crops. It also enters the air, seeps into groundwater, and washes into surface water and onto neighboring lands.
Saying that PFAS are everywhere and in everything is not a good argument for continuing to spread biosolids.
It’s a good argument for stopping.
