BELLEFONTE -- Environmental experts are balking at a State College resident's question of whether the AIDS virus could be living in sludge processed at the University Area Joint Authority's wastewater treatment plant.

Practicing gynecologist Gerald Clair said he told Benner Township supervisors last month that he worried viruses might be contracted by those who come in contact with compost.

During a special meeting Tuesday, David A. Long, a University civil engineering professor, attempted to alleviate any fears of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome being communicable to the public through sewage sludge.

"There's evidence to indicate that viruses are present in wastewaters and sludges, but not the AIDS virus," the wastewater treatment expert said.

Long questioned Clair's AIDS inquiry in the first place.

"I think it was unethical for (Clair) to raise the question at the last meeting," Long said. "As a physician, he should know there is no likelihood or no real risk of that happening.

"I can't understand why he ever raised it," Long said. "I think it was a scare tactic."

Benner Township supervisors have scheduled an April 3 vote on whether to approve a permit allowing construction to begin on UAJA's $34 million expansion of the Spring Creek facility.

Clair, who operates a practice at 232 S. Burrowes St., said as an informed resident he cannot understand why officials spend millions on facility upgrades instead of developing methods to kill off harmful viruses in wastewater.

"The modern-day sewage plants are not killing viruses," he said yesterday. Clair said he became aware of the issue by reading numerous articles on the subject.

"I'm just a concerned citizen. I'm not a specialist in the field," he said.

David Allison, UAJA's chairman since 1968, discounted the doctor's concern.

"I think that the risk is non-existent as far as the AIDS virus itself is concerned," he said, adding that other viruses known to live in wastewater pose little or no threat to public or employees safety.

Clair insists a danger does exist.

"I can show you numerous articles that show (Long and Allison) are wrong," he said. "Up until recently no one thought about viral transmission through sewage sludge."

Allison, who has worked for UAJA since 1964, said he speaks from experience in quelling concern about viruses in compost.

"In the 20 years I've been at the facility we have never had any kind of illness that can be directly attributed to working at either the treatment facility or in the sanitary sewers themselves," Allison said.

The chairman came to the township supervisors' meeting armed with a study on that subject, reported in the Operations Forum of the Water Pollution Control Federations' August 1988 journal.

"HIV contaminated blood and other bodily fluids may be carefully poured down a drain connected to a sewer," the report states.

"The Center for Disease Control supports this practice because there is no epidemiological evidence that wastewater workers are at increased risk of any blood-borne viral infections, including HIV," it continues.

HIV -- human immunodeficiency virus -- is a common precursor to the AIDS virus.

In late 1987, a WPCF journal article noted: "The U.S. Centers for Disease Control stated that no environmentally mediated mode of transmission of the AIDS virus has been documented."

For employees at the UAJA plant, there are standard safeguard measures in place to prevent possible contamination, Allison said.

"We practice an immunization program for all of our employees that work in the treatment facility or in the collection system itself," he said. "We are constantly after our guys: 'Hey you know guys, don't take it home to mom.' "

Long said he has had enough experience with environmental issues to know not to close the book on whether the AIDS virus could somehow live outside the human body and survive in sludge.

"I don't think anyone is suggesting that we have all the answers," he said. "So continued research in monitoring may someday indicate there is less risk or more risk."