GOOCHLAND COUNTY, Va. -- A spokesperson from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality said the agency is making sure a spill involving human waste in Goochland is being cleaned up properly.
It happened Monday afternoon on Maidens Road, near River Road.
A dump truck crashed into a ditch causing some of the waste to spill onto the road and into the ditch.
Jessica McCourt
“Oh my god that’s a lot,” Jessica McCourt, who lives nearby, said about the spill. “Yeah, that’s disgusting, and just look at all the water washing down through there.”
McCourt said she is not comfortable with fecal matter traveling through her neighborhood.
“I’m just a little surprised they transport human waste in a dump truck,” McCourt said.
Especially, she said, because her kids like to play in a nearby creek.
“The fact that it could have some runoff is concerning,” McCourt said.
The Virginia DEQ said the waste was being transported from a sewage treatment plant in Washington, DC, through Goochland, to a storage facility in Cumberland County.
DEQ spokesperson Bill Hayden said the sludge is used for fertilizer and farmers must get a permit to use it.
Hayden said it is filtered to reduce germs and pollutants.
Still, McCourt said she does not think human waste should be carried in dump trucks.
“We transport pool water better than that,” McCourt said.
Hayden said none of the waste that spilled got into any nearby waterways.
