THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 2, 1995 TAG: 9505020274
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVID M. POOLE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
Patricia Katzen's eyes sparkle when she talks trees.
``I think it's very exciting,'' she says in a pleasant Australian accent. ``It's one of the most exciting things I have ever been involved in.''
Katzen has high hopes that trees - particularly the Aspen Poplar - will prevent contaminated water from gushing out of closed landfills.
Katzen lacks the technical expertise to evaluate the unorthodox notion of planting poplars on landfills. But she has the political connections in the Allen administration to make sure the idea gets every consideration in a high-profile pilot project.
Her husband is Jay Katzen, a Republican state delegate from Fauquier County. Her patron is Becky Norton Dunlop, Allen's appointee as secretary of natural resources. Her political pedigree gives her wide latitude as a roving troubleshooter within the state Department of Environmental Quality.
Katzen's pet project - which will begin later this month - will determine whether a stand of poplars can serve as a low-tech alternative to expensive clay liners required to keep water from leaking into the buried garbage.
``It may be too good to be true,'' Katzen says. ``But wouldn't it be wonderful if it works?''
The proposal has put environmentalists on the spot. Some privately scoff, but publicly they are hesitant to criticize an experiment that fits into an emerging niche of environmental science known as bioremediation, which relies on natural processes to reclaim soil, water and air.
Yet they suspect that the Allen administration is motivated not by a green conscience, but by a desire to help landfill operators cut corners with environmental protection.
``You have to wonder if there is politics at play: How little can you get away with in terms of remediation?'' asks Paul Schwartz, a public policy analyst with Clean Water Action in Washington.
``I think there is a place for looking at how communities can mimic natural processes to their advantage,'' says Jason Gray, environmental programs manager for the Virginia Water Project in Roanoke, a nonprofit group that deals with rural water quality issues.
Gray cautions that bioremediation techniques that work on a small scale may not be suitable in large-scale projects, such as regional landfills.
``We need to go slow,'' Gray says, ``and just not pass it off as a way for communities to save money in the short run so they don't have to put an impermeable cap over their landfill.''
A water-tight cap is required under state and federal regulations to prevent water from soaking into the landfill and, after mixing with the garbage, leaking out in the form of contaminated leachate.
Landfill caps do not come cheap. Closing each acre can cost $100,000.
Katzen estimates that landfill operators could cut the closure costs in half by switching to a ``living cap'' of poplars.
She heard about the alternative cap from Louis A. Licht, a University of Iowa professor who promotes poplar trees as a natural cure for a variety of environmental ills and is marketing several ideas under the trade name Ecolotree.
Licht says the most simple way to explain the poplar cap is to think of a ``sponge and pump'' effect. Soil on top of the landfill acts as a ``sponge'' that soaks up rainfall and melted snow. The fast-growing poplars then ``pump'' out the water through their root systems before the water reaches the trash.
``It's a balancing act,'' he says.
The trick, he acknowledges, will be to keep the Ecolotree system in balance in the winter when the poplars lose their leaves - and their thirst for water.
Ecolotree has run demonstration projects in Oregon and Iowa.
``Whatever we hoped these trees would do, they have done more,'' Licht says. ``So it leads me to believe that these plants, if engineered and controlled, can achieve what we want.''
Virginia's feasibility study will be the first Ecolotree project east of the Mississippi River. No state funds are involved.
A consortium of five waste companies and one paper company have donated $48,000 to engineer the four sites: a regional sanitary landfill operated by Chambers Development Corp. in Charles City County; a sanitary landfill in Hampton run by Sanifill Management Co.; and two construction debris landfills in Chesterfield County.
The first poplars will be planted next month in Charles City County.
``It's opening the door to a new way of thinking,'' Katzen says. ``We are botanically challenging our engineers. What we want to suggest to these engineers is that they can use plants as one of their tools.''
Before she came to the Department of Environmental Quality, Katzen was a community activist in Fauquier County, where she headed a local beautification committee and worked as the county's recycling coordinator.
Katzen was hired as a part-time state employee after Allen's inauguration in January 1994. She shuttles between the department and Dunlop's office.
Her interest in bioremediation began with a man-made wetlands project in Fauquier. Katzen has high hopes for the poplar study and, while conceding there are no guarantees, she has a tenderfooted optimism that innovation eventually will lead to a breakthrough.
``At least at the end of this thing,'' she says, ``we'll know that it failed and go on to something else.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color ASSOCIATED PRESS photo
The willows behind Patricia Katzen are in the same family of trees
as the hybirds poplars that will be used at four Virginia landfills.
The idea " may be too good to be true," she says.
KEYWORDS: LANDFILL TREE VIRGINIA by CNB