
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 16, 1990                   TAG: 9004160269
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FAIRFAX                                LENGTH: Medium

MUTILATED BODY OF BABY FOUND IN SEWAGE GRINDER

The mutilated remains of an infant were discovered in a clogged mechanical sewage grinder at a water pumping station, police said.

Wallace Franklin, a maintenance operator for the county's Public Works Department, discovered the body Sunday at the Difficult Run Pumping Station east of Reston, Fairfax County police said.

"It was a young baby" Franklin told The Washington Post. "It was a bad place to start out Easter."

The station was temporarily closed after the discovery was made, but was placed back in service after about an hour, Fairfax County police spokesman Bill Coulter said.

Coulter said the baby was white but he did not know the infant's age, sex or how long it had been in the system.

Police said the baby's remains were taken to the county's morgue, where an autopsy will be conducted. Coulter said it could be weeks before the cause of death is determined.

Karl Vehis, branch chief of the maintenance division of the county's public works department, said raw sewage is pumped into the station from several areas in the county, including Reston, Vienna and parts of Herndon. At the station, the sewage goes through a mechanical bar screen that rakes out the solids, which are then put through a grinder and then returned to the system.

The sewerage system is separate from the storm drainage system, he said.

Vehis said workers check the automatic pumping station daily and take readings. He said it is unlikely that the baby had been in the station's sewage longer than 24 hours. From 7 to 8 million gallons of raw sewage come through the system daily.

The sewage is then pumped about six miles to the Accotink Pumping Station and eventually ends up in the Lower Potomac Pumping Plant, where it is treated, cleaned and poured into the Potomac River.

Vehis said sewer lines in the county range from 8 inches to 42 inches in diameter. The station also is a dumping site open to the public where people can dump sewage out of recreation vehicles or septic tanks, he said. Vehis speculated that the baby was probably dropped down a manhole but could not say if the baby came into the system through that manhole pipe.

by CNB