About fifty people, including very few from Halifax County, showed up Tuesday evening at the public meeting held by the Department of Environmental Quality at the Brookneal Elementary School. The meeting focused on a discussion of the water quality study of the Staunton River which is underway.
"As long as those signs along the river are posted, warning residents of the high level of PCBs in some of the fish, people should realize the danger of eating those fish," one DEQ official warned. "And as much as we'd like to see those signs removed, they are still there and the danger of consuming fish caught there remains." The signs were posted along the Staunton from Altavista to Clover when the Department of Health first warned residents of the dangers of consuming fish taken from the river back in 1999. The current study still shows a high level of PCB contamination in both the large mouth bass and the catfish found around the part of the river near Clover.
Since January of 2006 officials with the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) have been studying the water quality of the river, and attempting to identify sources of PCB compounds which they have found there. Their initial tests indicate that at least three locations require additional testing to identify possible PCB sources in the river — the Burlington Industries plant in Hurt, the Altavista wastewater treatment plant and the Dan River plant in Brookneal (which closed in September of 2006). The January tests showed a total concentration of 60.4 parts per trillion (ppt) in water which was discharged from Burlington Industries and 2.2 ppt in water discharged from the Altavista wastewater treatment plant and only 0.5 ppt in water discharged from the Dan River plant in Brookneal. (Under Virginia's water quality standards the maximum allowable amount of PCBs found in surface waters is 1.7 ppt.)
The Altavista treatment plant receives wastewater from BGF Industries which was earlier identified as a source of the PCBs and with which DEQ continues to work to address contamination of the site.
One of the DEQ biologists in the Lynchburg office noted that both Altavista and Clover have been labeled as "the hot spots" along the river. He noted that the agency is looking to see if it can identify yet another source of PCB leakage somewhere near Clover, but as yet has not found one.
Information from the ongoing study will be used to develop a "total maximum daily load (TMDL)" for the Staunton River. A TMDL is the maximum amount of a pollutant that a water body can contain and still meet water quality stands. In order to restore water quality, PCB levels have to be reduced to the TMDL amount.
The Virginia Department of Health recommends that high-risk individuals such as pregnant women, women planning to become pregnant, nursing mothers, infants and young children should avoid eating PCB-contaminated fish from advisory areas.