In the wake of the JLARC Report's strong criticisms of the BS industry and of the VDH's poor showing in regulating BS, and after a year of consistently strong editorial opinions and news articles critical of the BS industry in Virginia, we have somehow lost a huge opportunity to move the law makers toward our side. We need to think about how we squandered this opportunity. We need to initiate some self-analysis/criticism of the A-BM and of our lack of effectiveness in keeping BS out of our rural communities, or, at the very least, our failure to effectively demand that each community be given the power to determine whether or not BS can be imported and spread within its boundaries.

A-BM -- Phase I
There are those who will argue, with good cause, that in spite of the JLARC report we could not reasonably anticipate a more positive outcome from the Va. legislature given 1) the pressures on the urban legislators to minimize the costs of BS disposal, 2) the enormous resources the BS-ers have to lobby with,  and 3) the inclination for all state legislators to belly-up to the BS-industry’s campaign-funding trough.  Those points are good ones, and worrisome.   

But on the positive side, in spite of little or no legislative progress, the first phase of the A-BM has successfully focused on disseminating information and raising public awareness that 1) BS is potentially dangerous in both the short term and long term, 2) many people are and have been victimized by BS, 3) BS is a nuisance even for those to whom it is not acutely dangerous, and 4) the federal and state officials who are supposed to be riding herd on the BS-ers are (conveniently) too understaffed and/or (conveniently) too incompetent to draft and enforce regulations that are protective of human health and welfare.

Have no doubt, many A-BM voices have been heard – Barbara Rubin, Marueen Reilly, CW Williams, Helane Shields, Carolyn Snyder, Ellen Harrison.  And the effects are being felt.  For instance, David Lewis is becoming a national cult hero because of the efforts of these sludge warriors, and others. The pro-BS EPA 'crats and their tactics have been properly discredited in the eyes of a public that tends first to trust its governmental institutions, and then turn on them.

These A-BM PR efforts have produced successes. The attempts of Appomattox, Blanton, Amelia, Louisa, and Rappahannock counties to ban or curtail BS land application – even those attempts that have been throttled by the courts – are testimony to the fact that local officials have heard the concerns of local citizens. The very existence of the JLARC report is testimony that somebody at the legislative level heard our concerns and investigated. The fact that BS has not yet been spread in Amherst County is testimony to the fact that a lot of unorganized concerned citizens can and will stand up at public hearings and make themselves heard.

A-BM -- Phase ii
But what has not been heard by any legislators anywhere in the country, so far as I am aware, is the collective voice of hundreds or thousands of irate and concerned people gathered on the lawns of state capitols or on the steps of state or federal regulatory agencies. What has not been heard is the collective voice of dozens local activists across the state picketing sludge sites and blocking sludge trucks. We have become proficient at blogging, e-mailing, publishing, and generally whimpering in print and on-line, but we have yet to avail ourselves of the most powerful force in American politics – signs-in-your-face public protest.

It is obvious to me that forcing sludgers to pony up a paltry $5,000 per permit is about the most we can ever hope for until 1) there is a 180 degree reversal of Virginia’s judicial opinions on local government right of self-determination of BS disposal; or 2) until 1000+ bodies show up in Richmond to protest what is happening in our rural counties; or 3) until activists in sludged counties across the state set up picket sites to get the politicians’ attention. If we cannot be heard through the legislative process, and if the judges choose to ignore or to pervert the Clean Water Act, then our options are limited.  But we have options nevertheless.