S.L.U.D.G.E. (Stop Land Use Damaging our Ground and Environment), a group of citizens in southwest Missouri, had a float in a recent Christmas parade.Learn more about the group at https://www.stopsludgespreading.com.
A temporary compromise reached by lawmakers means Maine communities are once again burying sewage sludge in the state-owned landfill at Juniper Ridge near Old Town, and don't have to pay extra to haul the waste to New Brunswick, Canada.
BY PENELOPE OVERTON, STAFF WRITER
Maine’s sludge disposal crisis is over for now, but the search continues for a permanent solution.
Maine communities are once again burying sewage sludge in the state-owned landfill at Juniper Ridge near Old Town and no longer have to pay extra to haul the waste to New Brunswick, Canada. The last truckload of Maine sludge headed to Canada on July 7.
“Our last bill was down, but we should see the full effect in our next bill,” said Dave Hughes, superintendent of the Scarborough Sanitary District. “We’re better off than most. The district has reserves, so we didn’t have to raise rates right away, but it was hugely expensive, and reserves don’t last forever.”
Before the sludge crisis, Scarborough was paying Casella Waste Systems, the contractor that operates Juniper Ridge for Maine, about $400,000 a year to dispose of its sludge at the state landfill. After Casella started trucking sludge to Canada, Hughes put Scarborough’s annual disposal rate at $600,000.
Casella started hauling sludge to Canada in February after it concluded that the landfill could no longer safely accept sludge from its three dozen municipal customers. That much wet material posed a threat to the landfill’s structural integrity, putting the pit itself in danger of collapse, Cassella said.
Casella blamed the sludge crisis on two new laws intended to protect Maine’s environment: one prohibited the use of sludge as an agricultural fertilizer due to elevated levels of potentially dangerous forever chemicals and the other banned out-of-state waste from Maine landfills.
This video is of testimony given in 2017 in Pennsylvania by several experts on the impacts of sewage sludge spreading on farmland beginning with Dr. Murray McBride.
(Beyond Pesticides, July 24, 2023) Sewage sludge, also known as biosolids, is a byproduct of sewage treatment and is used as a source of organic matter for amending soil in nonorganic agriculture and landscaping. EPA has published a list of 726 chemicals found in biosolids in the National Sewage Sludge Surveys. This list does not include the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are emerging contaminants of biosolids.
In addition to PFAS (also referred to as “forever chemicals”), persistent toxic pollutants found in biosolids include: inorganic chemicals such as metals and trace elements; organic chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, dioxins, pharmaceuticals, and surfactants; and pathogens including bacteria, viruses, and parasites. Regulation of biosolids by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been found by the EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG), in its report EPA Unable to Assess the Impact of Hundreds of Unregulated Pollutants in Land-Applied Biosolids on Human Health and the Environment, to be inadequate. Lacking sufficient oversight at the federal level, action to protect health and the environment falls to the states and local jurisdictions.
Here are the conclusions of OIG:
“The EPA’s controls over the land application of sewage sludge (biosolids) were incomplete or had weaknesses and may not fully protect human health and the environment. The EPA consistently monitored biosolids for nine regulated pollutants. However, it lacked the data or risk assessment tools needed to make a determination on the safety of 352 pollutants found in biosolids. The EPA identified these pollutants in a variety of studies from 1989 through 2015. Our analysis determined that the 352 pollutants include 61 designated as acutely hazardous, hazardous or priority pollutants in other programs.
The Clean Water Act requires the EPA to review biosolids regulations at least every 2 years to identify additional toxic pollutants and promulgate regulations for such pollutants. Existing controls based on the Clean Water Act and the EPA’s Biosolids Rule include testing for nine pollutants (all heavy metals), researching for additional pollutants that may need regulation, reducing pathogens and the attractiveness of biosolids to potential disease-carrying organisms, and conducting compliance monitoring activities. The EPA’s risk communication regarding biosolids should also be transparent.
The EPA has reduced staff and resources in the biosolids program over time, creating barriers to addressing control weaknesses identified in the program. Past reviews showed that the EPA needed more information to fully examine the health effects and ecological impacts of land-applied biosolids. Although the EPA could obtain additional data to complete biosolids risk assessments, it is not required to do so. Without such data, the agency cannot determine whether biosolids pollutants with incomplete risk assessments are safe. The EPA’s website, public documents and biosolids labels do not explain the full spectrum of pollutants in biosolids and the uncertainty regarding their safety. Consequently, the biosolids program is at risk of not achieving its goal to protect public health and the environment.”
Despite OIG’s recommendation that EPA disclose to the public the fact that the chemicals in biosolids are not fully evaluated for safety and therefore safety claims, or implications of safety, are fraudulent, EPA continues to mislead the public. The OIG’s recommendation stated, “Change the website response to the question “Are biosolids safe?” to include that the EPA cannot make a determination on the safety of biosolids because there are unregulated pollutants found in the biosolids that still need to have risk assessments completed. This change should stay in place until the EPA can assess the risk of all unregulated pollutants found in biosolids.” However, EPA’s website does just the opposite with the following language: “Pollutants found in biosolids will vary depending upon inputs to individual wastewater treatment facilities over time. The presence of a pollutant in biosolids alone does not mean that the biosolids pose harm to human health and the environment.” Rather than alerting the public to the fact that full information is not available on the hazard of toxic chemical residues in biosolids, as recommended by OIG, the agency is telling the public that findings of residues does not indicate a threat to health.
Land application of biosolids to farms and landscapes is considered the standard means of “disposal.” Chemicals such as PFAS have been found to migrate into food when grown in farms using contaminated biosolids. Over 60% of biosolids are used in crops, and the contaminants in them make their way to our food and water. But if biosolids are used in landscaping, the contaminants pose a hazard to landscapers and those using athletic fields. In view of EPA’s failure to provide comprehensive identification, regulation, and elimination of potential contaminants, the biosolids themselves must be tested to ensure safety. Biosolids should be tested to ensure that they do not cause acute toxicity, cancer, genetic mutations, birth defects, reproductive or developmental effects, neurotoxicity, endocrine disruption, or immune system effects. Otherwise, they should not be used on farms or landscapes.
NEW BRUNSWICK, CANADA (WGME) -- A mounting environmental crisis in Maine is leading to major concerns for our neighbors to the north in Canada.
As our state struggles to dispose of biosolids, also known as wastewater sludge, truckloads a day are now being shipped to the province of New Brunswick. That increase in imports is leading to questions about capacity there and if there's any risk for contamination.
"It's easy to get into trouble, especially in an environmental sense, and it's a lot harder to remediate it," Harvey Station, New Brunswick sheep farmer Ted Wiggans said. "I follow the precautionary principle, which means you don't do something until you're pretty sure the ramifications."
BY SAMMY FRETWELL AND SUSAN MERRIAM UPDATED JULY 15, 2023 9:00 AM
For years, farmers across South Carolina have used sludge from factories and sewage plants to fertilize the fields where crops grow and cattle graze.
Applied to thousands of acres since the 1990s, the sludge is billed as a cheap way to enrich the soil. But increasingly, chemicals suspected of causing cancer, high cholesterol and other health problems are being found in the mucky waste.
Scientists, environmentalists and some farmers worry that the pollutants in sludge, called PFAS or forever chemicals, are contaminating drinking water, poisoning crops and sickening people.
“We’re talking about cancer-causing chemicals that can get into surface water and, therefore, into drinking water systems or in fish people eat,’’ said environmental lawyer Ben Cunningham, who has pushed the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control to tighten state oversight of sewer sludge.
