How Does Poop “Float” in a “Dry Ditch”? Questions for Supervisor John Stanmeyer

At last Tuesday’s meeting of the Warren County Board of Supervisors,  Shenandoah district Supervisor John Stanmeyer waded (no pun intended) into the issue of Christendom College and its failing wastewater treatment plant and its impact.

To say he misrepresented the facts is an understatement.

To begin, throughout his “report,” he referred to the unnamed tributary in which the college’s wastewater outfall empties as a “dry ditch”, which, interestingly, is the same language used in Christendom’s press release on the subject. I doubt that it is a coincidence.

By definition, a dry ditch is not a tributary. Tributaries, by nature, are not dry; they are bodies of water flowing into a larger body of water. In this case, the tributary FLOWS 400 feet down the hill from the treatment plant outfall to the Shenandoah River.

Mr. Stanmeyer also referenced an email from DEQ regarding the potential effects on local swimmers.

What grabbed my attention is that it’s verbatim an email we received when my wife inquired about the subject this spring. Mr Stanmeyer referenced part of the email regarding the “parameters of concern, ammonia and pH,” and how they didn’t expect any danger to swimmers “a mile downstream”.

What he didn’t mention is that DEQ is referring to the impact of normal wastewater discharge operations there, not the impact of their plant failures resulting in the discharge of wastewater solids. That impact has not been determined.

To be clear, the term “wastewater solids” is a reference to human feces.

In his most egregious lie of the evening, Mr Stanmeyer asserted that wastewater solids (remember, human feces) never reached the Shenandoah River, only going 80 feet down the “dry ditch”. How human feces make it 80 feet down anything without any flowing water, I am unsure. The reality is that he was actually referring to a previous discharge incident, not the most recent.

There were two incidents in 2024. One incident occurred in April, triggering the current ongoing investigation, and another in October involved the discharge of wastewater solids.

The DEQ report on the wastewater solids discharge in October reads:

“Mr. Wynn and Mr. Boyd walked from outfall 001 to the Shenandoah River to observe the solids within the Shenandoah River, UT, downstream of outfall 001. Solids were observed throughout the entire reach of the UT (390 ft). Solids were dark to light brown and floating on the surface of the stream. The solids accumulation within the stream averaged 2-4 inches thick.

Mr. Wynn asked Mr. Boyd how the solids were removed from the impacted area as described in the 24-hour notification. Mr. Boyd said the operator used a hose to wash the solids downstream from the outfall, and no solids were physically removed from the stream.”

The entire episode raises two important questions:

1. Why is Mr. Stanmeyer using his position as Supervisor to run damage control for Christendom College when so much information to the contrary is available to the public?

2. How does poop “float” in a “dry ditch”?

Dominic Ruibal
Shenandoah District 
Front Royal, VA

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