Board of Supervisors Addresses Wastewater Spills

Something in the water? Last week, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors agreed to pay $15,000 to the Department of Environmental Quality and to enter a consent decree with the Virginia State Water Board for multiple wastewater spills last year. 

The DEQ has found fault with the  "on several occasions,” according to the Washington Post. That includes the Jan. 19, 2011, discharge of nearly 580,000 gallons of “tertiary clarifier sludge” into Pohick Creek. 

Still, the Lorton plant received an award last June for “meeting federal pollution control standards 100 percent of the time for 13 years in a row,” according to a Fairfax County press release. 

The $15,000 in County funds will go to the DEQ’s Environmental Response Fund. 

“We take protecting the environment very seriously,” said Michael McGrath, director of the Wastewater Treatment Division of the county’s Department of Public Works and Environmental Services in the Post article. “We’ve taken responsibility for the spills that occurred.”