Whatever happened to ... cemeteries at sewage treatment plant?

By Greg Gaudio

VIRGINIA BEACH 

The phrase "sewage treatment plant" tends to conjure up certain visuals. A serene family cemetery generally isn't one of them - unless you're talking about Hampton Roads Sanitation District's Atlantic Treatment Plant at the end of Firefall Drive. The 500-acre property is home to two 19th-century cemeteries.

It's an unlikely final resting place, with machinery constantly whirring as it processes the 36 million gallons of sewage that flows in each day. Add to that the construction bustle accompanying the plant's $160 million expansion, and it's surprising that these spots can seem as peaceful as they did one afternoon last week.

The Dyer Family Cemetery - the larger of the two - is on the main plant site between the building that treats sewage with oxygen and four massive round tanks bubbling with murky water.

All that seems to fade away, though, under the canopy of branches that shades the 25 or so graves. There are hazelnuts and fruit trees: date, plum, pear and apple. The sun peeks through. Leaves and sweetgum balls crunch under foot.

An overturned pot of weathered plastic roses sits near the grave of the last person buried there, Elizabeth Dyer Hardy (1882-1987). A ceramic bunny keeps watch atop the next grave over - that of Mary Virginia and Peter H. Dyer.

Those are among the few modern, granite graves. Most of the headstones are marble, mossed over and hard to read, with dates of death ranging from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s.

"They're all Dyers and relatives as far as we know," said HRSD real estate manager Steve Richendollar.

People still stop by to pay their respects, said plant manager Erwin Bonatz. "Some people just show up, and we take them back," he said. "It's pretty informal as long as they touch base with the operator and let us know what's going on."

The smaller Morrisette Family Cemetery sits at the foot of a tall persimmon tree on a tract of land behind the main plant. It's currently inaccessible; vegetation has been allowed to grow to protect it from the construction. But it'll be cleared again when that's over, Bonatz said.

It has five gravestones, all of which bear the Morrisette family name. Death dates range from 1833 to 1933, according to a cultural resources identification survey.

No one else will be interred in the cemeteries, Bonatz said, now that HRSD owns and maintains them both.

They've had the Morrisette parcel since the initial land acquisition for the plant in the early '80s, Bonatz said.

But they didn't technically own the Dyer parcel until much later. Property records show that it was deeded to HRSD in 2005, as a gift from Georgianna Dyer Albert.

The Atlantic Treatment Plant opened in 1983, on land that had been used for pig farming. Most of the land came from the Malbon and Upton families - in addition to the Morrisettes and Dyers.

The expansion will increase the area covered by infrastructure by 35 percent, allowing the plant to process 54 million gallons a day instead of 36 million. It's to be completed in 2010, Bonatz said.

Greg Gaudio, (757) 222-5125, greg.gaudio@pilotonline.com