t FOOTBALL FEVER: Liberty and Fauquier previews. Sports, pages 9-11
August 22, 2018
Our 201st year
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Vol. 201, No. 34
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www.Fauquier.com
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LOCK IT UP:
Health department offers free trigger locks to local gun owners By Karen Chaffraix Times Staff Writer
The Rappahannock-Rapidan Health District, one of 35 divisions under the Virginia Department of Health — this one serving Fauquier, Orange, Madison, Rappahannock and Culpeper counties — has dipped into its budget to buy 2,000 gun trigger locks to offer free to residents, “No questions asked.” “The role of public health is always prevention,” said the district’s April Achter, from her Warrenton office on Friday. Achter spearheaded the project, which began distributing trigger locks
in June. “In looking at our community health needs and meeting with citizens, we found not only that dealing with gun violence was a top concern, but that the suicide rate in our five-county area was higher than the state average.” It’s actually four times as high as the state rate. The five-county region had 16.9 suicides per 100,000 people last year, compared to 4.27 per 100,000 across Virginia. “We think that locking guns could reduce unintentional and suicide gun deaths by up to 70 percent,” she said. While this is the first such pro-
gram in Virginia, “It does have the potential to be replicated across the state.” In 2012, the American Academy of Pediatrics reported that while gun locks are used in about 71 percent of households with children under 12, lock usage drops to about 58 percent when the children become teenagers. Yet it is adolescents, the report said, “with their often impulsive behavior,” who are most at risk of suicide by gun. “The odds are particularly high if the gun is kept loaded,” the report added.
See TRIGGER LOCKS, page 2
Used on Fauquier farms for years, biosolids still raise a stink State study recommends more research into possible health effects By Karen Chaffraix Times Staff Writer
TIMES STAFF PHOTO/KAREN CHAFFRAIX Jordan Koepke, left, and her mother, Maureen Friel, stand at the fence in Maureen’s front yard in Casanova. Friel is pointing to the brown area on the farm across the road where trucks have deposited biosolids, which are then spread by more trucks. The air had been unpleasantly odiferous, and they worry about contamination of Turkey Run, which runs through that field, and of their wells. INSIDE Business.............................................13 Classified............................................28 Communities......................................22 Faith...................................................26
Health & Wellness...............................15 Libraries.............................................25 Lifestyle..............................................17 Opinion.................................................5
It was a boiling hot day in mid-July. The air in Casanova hung low and still over its lush rolling hills. And boy did it stink. “Are you aware that human excrement is being spread on the farms out here? We can’t breathe,” the caller said. Barbara O’Brien had come to visit her sister in Casanova. She handed her the phone. Maureen and Robert Friel, retired government folks, 35 years in Casanova, had been watching convoys of tanker trucks turn into the farm across the way for seven days. “As many as 30 a day. We’ve been counting,” Maureen said. “Each one carries 20 to 40 tons. Another company’s been spreading it.”
See BIOSOLIDS, page 2
Obituaries.............................................6 Puzzles.................................................8 Real Estate..........................................21 Sports...................................................9
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