Calling all SONs, Calling all SONs!  (February 12th, 2008)

Please plan to attend this very informative meeting of the general membership on the 24th. Your executive committee will review what we accomplished in 2007 and our agenda for 2008. The big event is our three guest speakers:

Supervisor Steve Mallette, Vice Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, will speak about the Board’s agenda for 2008 and important issues facing the County.

Chairman Phil Hickman, Chairman Accomack County Planning Commission, will speak about the Comprehensive Plan and where we go from here.

Supervisor Phil McCaleb, our new Supervisor from District 9, will talk about his ideas about responsible government, listen to your input, and respond to your questions.

All three gentlemen will respond to questions. This is you golden opportunity to hear first hand what is going on and to make your opinions known to those in charge. Do not miss this important opportunity to ask questions about what YOU think is important in Accomack County. For additional information or to volunteer to help, call Wes Edwards at 442-3110

New Comprehensive Plan Gets Creative About Smart Growth

Tony Picardi recently interviewed Mr. Phil Hickman, Chairman of the Planning commission to get his impression of the draft comprehensive plan that was sent to the County Board of Supervisors. What he found, summarized here, is that this draft plan takes a new approach to zoning in the County. With a fairly comprehensive list of criteria that must be met by applicants for re-zoning, the plan gives the Planning Commission and Supervisors much more latitude to make smart growth decisions and to mitigate the impacts of growth. At the same time, the plan preserves family subdivisions and encourages affordable, or “workforce”, housing around existing settlements.

SONs Lawsuit Rumbles On

The SONs lawsuit to get the County to follow the laws of Virginia, instead of political whim, in making appointments has wound its way through several more briefs. In his synopsis of the continuing saga of the SONs lawsuit, George Parker observes that, “we are resolved to see this through because we believe we are right and we believe we have the right to be governed in accordance with the law.” The ball is now back in Judge Tyler’s court and SONs awaits his decision.

Septage Still Seeps

Since our expose of the septage lagoon situation, Tony Picardi has talked to the CEOs of both Bundick Well and Pump and Boggs Water & Sewage. We learned that Boggs stopped using its lagoon near Wachapreague on January 2 after being told by the Virginia Department of Health that they were out of compliance. Boggs is now bringing their pump-outs to a treatment facility in Pocomoke. At this time, SONs does not know whether Boggs intends to empty the lagoons and install monitoring wells.

Bundick Well and Pump’s two lagoons are still permitted and in use. SONs has been told that there have been, “no red flags” from the monitoring wells, although as of this date we have obtained no official test results to confirm this. The Virginia Health Department wants Bundick to empty and line the lagoons. Spreading the dried bio-solids on fields has been suggested and is standard practice. - So far as we know, Bundick has not decided to line its lagoons. Both operators claim that their prices have more than doubled since the Health Department crack down.

SONs believes that safe and sanitary sewage disposal is a requirement if this County is to grow, provide jobs, and aspire to eco-tourism. This cannot be compromised. And as long as the spirit of capitalism and competition is alive in this County, the price will be as low as it can be. We believe that the long term (3 years and beyond) answer will include some combination of central treatment facilities, land spreading of bio-solids, and possibly composing prior to marketing fertilizer (branded “Shore Growth”) outside the county. But this will take several years. In the short term, we see no alternative but to minimize the potential environmental risks by closing the existing lagoons. Alternative properly lined and monitored lagoons should be built in the County as soon as possible. The sooner the County puts together a team to work through the technologies and economics with Boggs, Bundick, the towns and villages, farmers and other citizens, and the Virginia Department of Health, the sooner we can all breath easier.

SONs started its on-line presence two years ago and, in early April of 2007, made a significant commitment to refreshing its content more frequently and involving more members in producing articles. In the last year, your intrepid content meister, indefatigable programmer genius, and quality-obsessed executive committee have produced over twenty iterations. Please check out our glorious past pages by scrolling down to the web page archive in the discussion thread link or click here. George Parker summarizes how saveournecks.com has grown and asks you to keep reading and continue supporting our open communication.

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