By Hope Cather 

When a group of the Clarke County Ruritans had their first fair meeting in late 2023, ideas were flying around the room. From the beginning, it was evident that everyone was enthusiastic to include some new additions. It was also evident that everyone wanted to respect long-time country traditions and continue to bring the hometown feel to the fair. This group of diverse volunteers followed their priorities and: Oh! What a fair this is going to be! Let’s all be grateful to the many volunteers who pull this off every year.

The music is back! Souled Out, Blue Ridge Thunder, and Stoney Creek Bluegrass Band will grace our stage during fair week. The pig scramble is back, too. One of Clarke’s great families helped make it happen, and Monday night will be full of pigs and kids. 

After many years, we will hear bingo numbers called at the fairgrounds. Sheriff Sumption will be calling, and prizes will be flowing. If cornhole tournaments are your thing, the bags start flying Saturday morning — and there are great payouts. 

Old fashioned children’s games will be held Wednesday and Saturday; both days have discounted rides. Wednesday children get in free. Everyone wants our community children to remember their county fair for years to come. The pageants are going to be full of area children and teens showcasing their beauty both inside and out. Stop by Sunday evening to see Virginia’s 2024 Rodeo Princess get crowned.

The livestock education program is full of shows, farm animals to see, and games that are open to both our 4-H children and community children. It’s a wonderful chance for children to check out our barn area and investigate the programs there. So much is going on there now with renovated buildings and expanded programs. All community children are welcome to jump into barn area programs this year — so they can be showing at the fair in 2025. Large animals and small, owned animals and borrowed; an area can be found that fits your family. 

The track area is going to be so full of energy every night during the fair week. Nobody loves revving engines and action more than Ruritan President Brad Broy, and he has big plans in place for everyone’s entertainment. The third year of Dirt Drag Racing is back with trucks, speed, and plenty of dust on Tuesday night to thrill everyone. One Demolition Derby is not enough for this county. There are going to be several on Thursday night with plenty of crashing and banging. Becoming more popular every year, garden tractor pulling gets real and messy. One will see this action is a lot better than mowing the lawn. A children’s pedal pull takes place on Sunday. It’s free to come to watch, and could be a great way to start interested children out. 

In true Clarke County Fair tradition though, over-the-top action goes down Friday and Saturday night. Horses, cowboys, and bulls will fill the arena Friday night, with Miss National Rodeo 2024 presiding over the rodeo. Horses will be back on Saturday night, but they will be under the hoods of the powerful trucks and tractors participating in the East Coast Pro Pulling Event. The energy is unbelievable watching the machines tear up the track competing to see who can pull the most weight.

The schedule is full and there’s more than you can imagine to do while at the fair. To top off its greatness, the fair food is like no other around and the evening chicken barbeque dinners are famous. 

Make sure you go through the schedule and plan to attend as many days as you can. The www.clarkecountfair.org website is full of information, and the Facebook account is updated constantly.

Approval comes despite disagreement over older earthen lagoons

by Charlie Paullin

Virginia is on track to implement updated rules for animal waste created by certain farming operations, despite disagreement on how to regulate older earthen lagoons that pose a greater risk of releasing pollutants into groundwater.

Wednesday, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin approved the regulation changes for farmers who confine cows, pigs and more for 45 days or more within a year for dairy, eggs and meat production, as well 
as slaughtering. 

Youngkin’s approval comes after the citizen-member State Water Control Board OK’d at a June 25 meeting the general permit for 108 animal feed operations in the state, meaning the rules in the one permit applies to all the operations. The current general permit is set to expire Nov. 15, so the revisions will take effect Nov. 16 for another 
10-year period. 

Waste from the animals can be stored in containers, concrete structures, or earthen lagoons, which are ponds of manure that use natural and chemical processes to treat it. The operators can treat the waste, recycle it or apply to their land as compost, among other purposes.

The rules are part of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s program to regulate pollution discharges to prevent harm to the environment. One concern with animal waste is a potential to release nitrogen into groundwater that can feed into waterways leading to the Chesapeake Bay, which state and federal partners are struggling to clean up.

“We are focused on nitrogen discharges to groundwater, but bacteria would also be of concern,” said Patrick Fanning, Virginia staff attorney with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, in an email to 
the Mercury.

There are also new requirements for nutrient management plans, an analysis for nitrogen and tools to determine a 100-year flood plain, or areas where groundwater can get inundated following heavy rain from intense storms likely to happen once every century and can lead to more groundwater connections that may flow up to the surface.

Some farmers had raised concerns over costs to any changes, said Betsy Bowles, DEQ animal feeding operations inspector. But other farmers were in support of the new rules, which incorporate previously less enforceable guidance on conditions for closing a waste 
storage device. 

After receiving feedback from farmers and environmental groups, which primarily wanted more monitoring, DEQ didn’t make any changes to the rules, which were presented to the public in their final form for the first time at the 
June 25 meeting.

The Virginia Farm Bureau spoke at that meeting in support of the rules. The only other commenter, Fanning, with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, called DEQ’s decision to not make one change, “a bad take and a bad interpretation of 
the law.”

The Bay Foundation, on behalf of several other organizations, submitted 10 requests, including requiring one groundwater monitor above and two groundwater monitors below earthen lagoons that were made before 1998. Those lagoons were grandfathered into regulations, and made without the more stringent requirements in place now, Fanning said, meaning “these are the lagoons that are most likely to be discharging 
to groundwater.”

Bowle’s said DEQ interpreted the law to mean that monitoring can only be required if there is already monitoring in place, 
Bowles added.

“Our understanding of the law, for being able to require more groundwater monitoring is if they are already monitoring but there is a change that we need to increase from one every three years to more frequent,” Bowles said. 

But Fanning, in his comments to the board said DEQ’s interpretation “is simply not true,” pointing out the law states DEQ “may include in the permit or nutrient management plan more frequent or additional monitoring of waste, soils or groundwater as required to protect state waters.”

And, he added: “How would DEQ ever know if there is a problem if they’re not requiring monitoring?”

Fanning sought guidance from the Attorney General’s office, but Ross Phillips, senior assistant attorney in the OAG, sided with DEQ, and certified the rules.

Tony Banks, senior assistant director of the agriculture, development and innovation department with the Virginia Farm Bureau, said in an interview with the Virginia Mercury, his organization is supportive of DEQ’s interpretation of the law and that the older lagoons were built to engineering standards of the time.

“If we had an issue that would’ve become apparent at this point,” Banks said.

DEQ spokeswoman Irina Calos added the agency is “unaware of any complete lagoon failures at permitted farms in Virginia.” One time, during the 2004 
Hurricane Gaston, floodwaters overtopped a lagoon that was in compliance with 
the permit.

“In general, DEQ does visual site inspections of waste storage structures to include lagoons every three years but can and does inspect sites more frequently as needed,” Calos said, adding that if there are concerns with noncompliance DEQ can require a permittee to obtain an individual permit with groundwater 
monitoring requirements.

Charles Paullin covers energy and environment for the Mercury. He previously worked for Northern Virginia Daily in the Northern Shenandoah Valley. This article originally appeared in the Virginia Mercury.