Question: But What Can I Do?

Answer: A Lot!

Below are action items you can help us with. They range from the interpersonal level to the level of the federal government. They are all designed to move us closer to our goals of stopping the land application of toxic sewage sludge in Virginia and charting a course toward waste solutions that are actually sensible and sustainable.

See which item(s) resonate with your personal strengths, then get in touch via the Contact page to let us know how you’d like to be involved.

Act Locally.

The strategies outlined below apply to our work in Albemarle County, specifically. But every county or town in Virginia has similar government structures and groups of procedures, so if you are not an Albemarle resident, you can still take these ideas and apply them to your county. (If you need help, contact us.)

The Power of the Pen: Connect with Your Neighbors

This is a grassroots movement. Your voice matters and one-to-one communication is essential. Ways to help:

  • Educate yourself about sludge, then talk with your neighbors, family and friends about it — especially if some of those people are farmers. Help them get educated, too.

  • Join our letter-writing campaign. We are reaching out via hand-written letters to farmers and neighbors of sludge application areas. We need help with information-gathering and with letter-writing.

  • Sign up for newsletters and alerts from us and our allies, then help spread the word about events, educational opportunities, and action campaigns via your social media and social network.

  • Submit written comments and encourage others to do so. See more in the local government section below.

AC44 is shorthand for Albemarle County’s comprehensive plan, which will guide the county until 2044. (Image from the AC44 website.)

Local Government:
Albemarle County’s Comprehensive Plan

Albemarle County is currently (in 2024) going through the process of revising and updating its comprehensive plan. The process involves the county’s paid staff, appointed planning commissioners, and elected county supervisors. The public is allowed input at various stages in the process and through various means.

Members of don’t spread on me are working to get a recommendation for a biosolids ordinance written into the plan, based on the successful ordinance of Rappahannock County. Learn more below and contact us if you’d like to help.

Learn More

First, visit the AC44 website to read information about the plan and how to engage with it. The plan is divided into four chapters. We are endeavoring to have the ordinance recommendation put into the Environmental Stewardship chapter. You can access a draft version of that chapter HERE.

Reading the model ordinance

It’s important to have some familiarity with the model upon which we are basing our requests. Please read the full text of the Rappahannock County Biosolids Ordinance.

Participate

The Participation Guide for Planning Commission Meetings has detailed instructions on how to participate in their public meetings. You can submit comments via email, watch and comment on zoom, or speak in person. You can even give a three-minute presentation, if you email the presentation files to the clerk 48 hours in advance. When submitting written comments, we recommend, in addition to the Clerk, sending directly to the PlanningCommission, the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Staff.

You can also submit comments using the “Ask a Planner” tool available on the AC44 Phase 3 page. We recommend doing this, but with the caveat that the chapters aren’t made available to comment on until late in the process, so engaging during the public meeting process is that much more important.

You may also contact your Planning Commissioner directly to share your thoughts. Find the name and email address of your district’s commissioner here. Not sure which district you’re in? Find your home on the magisterial district map on this page.

Comments are most effective when they can directly address goal and objectives that the county has already stated or adopted. For examples and guidance on some talking points, you can read these sample comments.

The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors meets twice monthly at the County office building in Charlottesville.

Local Government:
Albemarle County Board of Supervisors

Our elected Board of Supervisors are the ones who pass ordinances and approve regulations that affect every aspect of life in the County. Regularly attending meetings and submitting comments is an important way of getting the supervisors to pay attention to an issue.

Learn More

You can find what district you’re in, which supervisor represents you, and read more about them at this page on the County website.

Participate

The Participation Guide for Board of Supervisor Meetings contains details and instructions about submitting comments to the Supervisors. They meet on the first and third Wednesday of every month. Keep up with meetings and agendas via the County Calendar page. Note that, in addition to emailing your comments to the Supervisors at BOS@albemarle.org, you may also submit written comments via an online portal. Those comments are visible to the public and become part of the public record.

To submit ecomments, start here. You’ll need to register or login, then click the link for the meeting you want to comment on. You’ll see further instructions in the window that opens and a list of agenda items below that. The items that are open for comment will have a grey box beneath them that says “Comment.” Click on that to submit your comments. If the item you wish to comment on isn’t on the agenda, you may still submit comments under the section called “From the Public.” They will be reviewing chapters of the Comprehensive Plan in meetings through early 2025.

Legislative Priorities

The Board of Supervisors also presents the County’s legislative priorities to the Virginia General Assembly every January. The draft priorities contained a provision asking that the General Assembly change the law regarding biosolids to allow localities more control over them. But in the final version of the priorities, announced at the end of 2024, that paragraph was cut, along with other environmental concerns.

You can submit comments about this at any upcoming meeting, under the “From the Public” section, as outlined above. You may wish to express your disappointment at the loss of the biosolids priority, ask that it be included in legislative priorities for 2026, and also use the opportunity to mention that Albemarle County should have a biosolids ordinance. Use the buttons below to compare the two documents.

State Government: The Virginia General Assembly

Our elected legislators have had well-funded industry groups lobbying and pushing the narrative that sludge is safe for decades. They need our help to bring them information that counteracts that narrative. They also need to know that their constituents care about this issue.

Communicate

Start by putting your address into the General Assembly’s Who is My Legislator tool. Click on the “More Info” link below your state senator or delegate’s name, and it will take you to their profile page, which includes their contact information.

Once you have educated yourself (use our Articles & Webinars page!), get in touch with your state senator and delegate.

Whichever method you choose, please include this message in your own words:

PFAS have been found in nearly every sample of biosolids that have been tested for it. Virginia needs to follow Maine’s lead and issue a state-wide ban on the land application of sludge, along with establishing a fund that will compensate farmers whose lands have been ruined.

Using the contact info from the General Assembly profile pages, you can:

  • Write them a letter. An old-fashioned USPS letter is still the most impactful way to reach your elected officials. Consider printing an article or two and enclosing it along with your letter. (We like this Virginia Mercury article.)

  • Make an appointment to meet them face-to-face. Call their office in Richmond to meet during a session, or call their district office to meet there when they are not in session.

  • Send them an email (or two or three…) along with links to articles or other info you think they should know about.

Participate

Some environmental groups have established annual days on which they bring their agenda and suggestions to members of the General Assembly and the public is invited to come along. You can register to join these groups and talk to your legislators during the January session:

Sign up for their newsletters to find out when these events and other action alerts are happening. Also visit Our Allies and get on the list for some of those groups to stay in the loop.

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. DEQ posts every permit application on their Virginia Pollution Abatement (VPA) page, and every application is open to public comment.

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 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. Each of those comments must:
    1. describe the interest of the commenter (e.g., “when I visit x County, I want to know my family is safe from PFAS and other highly mobile toxins present in biosolids;”
    2. raise “substantial, disputed issues relevant to the modification” (i.e. the permit fails to control toxic PFAS contamination that the modification would increase); and
    3. demand action by the agency within its legal authority (i.e. reject the modification; and require PFAS testing and limits).
    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.