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BLACKSBURG - Blacksburg's most vigorously contested town council election in years ended Tuesday with a resounding rejection of the town's plan to build a conventional sewer through the Toms Creek Basin.

Supporters and opponents of the sewer, which would be built through the least-developed section of town, had called the election a referendum, with three candidates on each side of the issue. Anti-sewer candidates swept the three open council seats in a landslide. Don Langrehr, who received the least votes of the three winners, more than doubled the vote total of incumbent J.B. Jones Jr., the highest vote-getter among the sewer supporters.

Langrehr, planning commission member Paul Lancaster and two-term incumbent Ron Rordam captured the contested seats. Write-in ballots will not be sorted until this afternoon. But with the write-in total less than that of any of the ballot candidates, it was already clear that write-in efforts by Frances Parsons, who has served on council since 1972, and Toby Rock had come up short.

Voter turnout in Blacksburg was 22.2 percent, higher than for any of the town's local elections since at least 1990.

"I think this was bigger than the sewer. It's about involvement in government," Rordam said.

Lancaster said he'd never expected such an overwhelming victory. "If that doesn't send a message to town council, I don't know what does," he said. "Not just the sewer. It's about listening. I think the sewer issue was one of the bigger symptoms of the problem of council not listening to what the citizens want."

"This doesn't mean we're going to stop growing," added Langrehr, who spoke often about the need to better control development. "It means we're going to do it in a balanced way."

Rordam, Lancaster and Langrehr support an alternative sewer plan that would alleviate the town's capacity problems with a line down the U.S. 460 Bypass rather than along Toms Creek.

After election results came in, Jones and Parsons sounded notes of disappointment.

"It worries me very much where the town's going," said Jones, who joined the council last year to complete the term of a councilman who moved. He added that he'd step down from the planning commission, where he's served for six years, saying, "I can't work with a town council like that."

Parsons, who had planned to retire but changed her mind two weeks ago as the threat to the sewer became more apparent, said the election had been different fromany in her experience. "The voters have spoken and they get what they vote for," she said.

Kevin Miller and Tonia Moxley

contributed to this report.