Sludge Watch ==> Canadian Sewer Sludge Won't Stink up Michigan's Brent Run Landfill

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

http://www.mlive.com/news/fljournal/index.ssf?/base/news-38/1155306002109630.xml&coll=5



Canadian sewer sludge won't stink up Brent Run

MONTROSE TOWNSHIP
THE FLINT JOURNAL

Friday, August 11, 2006
By Elizabeth Shaw
eshaw at flintjournal.com • 810.766.6311

MONTROSE TWP. - Officials at Brent Run Landfill say there is no reason to 
worry that Canadian sewage sludge will end up in Montrose Township.

According to a recent Associated Press report, the city of Toronto had 
sought a court order forcing Republic Services Inc. to take the city's 
sludge to Brent Run after the state Department of Environmental Quality 
stopped Canadian sludge transports to Republic's Carleton Farms dump in 
Wayne County, citing complaints from nearby residents about the stench.

The request was denied. But Brent Run general manager Jim Webber said the 
company never intended to bring Canadian sludge here.

"Toronto was just trying to make Republic Services responsible for finding a 
place for their sludge once they were shut out of Wayne County. But Brent 
Run was never even considered as an option," Webber said. "This landfill 
sits too close to M-57 and we have a mobile home park right across the 
road."

According to a state DEQ report, Brent Run Landfill took in more than 90 
percent of the Canadian trash trucked into Genesee County in 2005. But it 
never was and will never be sewage sludge, Webber said.

The landfill does receive a small amount of sludge from the Genesee County 
wastewater treatment plant in Montrose, Webber said, amounting to a few 
containers a month of 20-30 cubic yards each.

"Sludge is basically human waste and it's very odorous. So even the little 
we get we don't spread. We bury it directly," he said.

Toronto produces 12 to 15 truckloads of sewage sludge a day, most of which 
is spread on farm fields in southwestern Ontario. Instead of going to 
Michigan, the sludge that is not spread as fertilizer will now be trucked to 
a composting facility in Quebec or to a landfill in New York.

Toronto is also negotiating with other firms to handle a portion of the 
sludge.