A group of Mathews residents has been denied a request for a public hearing before the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality over a permit application by Riverside Convalescent Center.

Riverside applied for a renewal of its long-standing permit to discharge effluent from backwashing its water filtration system into a ditch that empties into Put-in Creek. The public notice of the permit application described the process as releasing treated industrial wastewater at a rate of 2,000 gallons per day into a water body. Sludge from the treatment system is disposed of separately by pump and hauled away to a treatment facility.

Thirteen Mathews residents made written requests for a public hearing, including Paul and Elsa Verbyla, whose property abuts the ditch that carries the effluent; Lynn Gillikin, who brought the matter to the attention of the Mathews Board of Supervisors; and Mathews County Administrator Steve Whiteway, who interceded on behalf of the residents.

However, Je...