Sludge Watch ==> Hinkley California - Crowd sounds off on possible Nursery Products sludge compost

[Maureen Reilly]

 http://www.desertdispatch.com/2006/115175575615124.html


   Crowd sounds off on possible Nursery Products facility


        By HOWARD DECKER Staff Writer



HINKLEY - "What makes what they are doing any different than what PG&E 
did?"
At a community meeting Wednesday night, Barbara Hill asked how having an 
organic waste facility here would be any different than the PG&E 
situation, made famous in the film "Erin Brockovich." Hill has lived 
here since 1980.
PG&E's plant was leaching chromium 6 into Hinkley's water supply, and a 
lawsuit in the early 1990s blamed the chemical for dozens of medical 
conditions. In 1996 PG&E settled the case for $333 million.

"That's exactly what the company is doing, putting people at risk," said 
environmentalist Jane Williams.

The overflow crowd at the Hinkley fire station had plenty to say about 
the prospect of a facility to process organic material, reportedly 
including human wastes, coming to this rural community.
Nursery Products LLC (NP) proposes to open a composting facility eight 
miles west of Hinkley and 22 miles west of Barstow. The matter is before 
the county Planning Commission.

The facility would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week and would 
process around 400,000 tons of compostable material a year, according to 
a county Initial Study Environmental Checklist Form.
An average of 1,100 tons of biosolids and green waste would be delivered 
to the site by truck with an average of 522 truck trips a day, the 
environmental form states. The proposed facility is in the initial 
stages of the county permit process, and the public has until July 5 to 
comment.

Biosolids are the nutrient-rich organic materials resulting from the 
treatment of sewage sludge, untreated residue generated during the 
treatment of domestic sewage in a treatment facility, according to the 
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Web site.
When treated and processed, sewage sludge becomes biosolids, which can 
be safely recycled and applied to land as fertilizer, the EPA said.
Brian Lochrie, public relations consultant for NP, said Friday that the 
environmental form is not accurate when it mentioned 522 truck trips a 
day and that the correct number is 47 truckloads a day. He said 522 is 
the number of total trips a day to and from the facility, including 
facility workers commuting to and from work. The facility would raise 
the traffic level in the area just 2 percent, he said.

At the Wednesday meeting, more than 200 residents showed up, causing the 
meeting to be moved out of the Hinkley Fire Station meeting room to the 
more spacious fire truck bays. One fire truck had to be moved out of the 
bays to make room for the crowd.

Norman Diaz, who organized the meeting, said some NP facilities in other 
areas are enclosed in concrete and utilize biological filters to make 
sure no disease-bearing dust escapes into the air.
Diaz urged the residents to fight the facility.

"This is going to be an issue for our grandkids," he said. "You don't 
bring this stuff out to the community and dump it on the desert floor."
The material that NP will be trucking in, he said, is treated biosolids, 
which have gone through a wastewater treatment plant and had a lot of 
the dangerous elements removed. The facility accepts a "wet, cake-like 
substance," he said, and mixes it with green waste such as wood chips 
and tree branches. This mixture is composted and turned into organic 
fertilizer similar to the bags of fertilizer that can be purchased at 
home supply stores, he said.

The company does not sell the fertilizer in stores but to farms and 
wineries, he said.

Williams said that local community groups can fight the placement of 
such facilities in their areas.
The groups must hold firm and say "no, no, no" to the proposed 
facilities, she said.
"This may not be a short battle; it may be a marathon, not a sprint," 
she said.

The NP facility proposal for Hinkley is a "1912 jalopy," she said, but 
in Redlands and Rancho Cucamonga the firm is building "a Cadillac 
hybrid" with all kinds of environmental safety features. She urged the 
community to say no to the proposal and not to negotiate for smaller 
facility or less waste trucked in per day.

She said she has seen similar facilities elsewhere that use "giant 
machines" that churn sludge and throw it into the air. With the high 
winds that this area is known for, she said, all kinds of unfriendly 
dust will descend on Hinkley and Barstow.

Residents from the Silver Lakes development located south of the 
proposed facility voiced concerns that when the wind is from the north, 
disease-bearing dust would envelop their homes.

Lochrie said that no NP facility is enclosed. The Adelanto facility 
operated for three years and has no problems with escaping dust, he said.
Some in the audience questioned the safety of the underground aquifer, 
and Diaz has said the facility will store wastes on the bare ground.
Teri Cheny, who has lived in Hinkley two years, said wastes are "still 
sitting on the ground" at a NP facility in Adelanto.

She wondered if Hinkley is "a community too poor to fight" the proposed 
facility.

Lochrie said it is not true that the Adelanto facility still has wastes 
stored on the ground and that the area was cleaned up and tested for 
excess nitrates. There were none, he said.

Bob Smith, a representative of county Supervisor Bill Postmus, was on 
hand at the meeting to observe and take comments back to his boss.
The board of supervisors, he said, cannot say to Nursery Products, "Go 
away; we will not accept your planning process."
A dozen voices called out in response, "Why not?"


...........................................................

Sludgewatch Admin:

Lets see 522 truck trips really means 47 trucks?
Ok...lets say 522 truck trips is half into and half out of the proposed facility...that makes it 261 trucks
And how does this become 47 trucks what with some of the trucks being staffers at the plant?

Only 4 or 5 staff are proposed to run this facility, and although the dumping will go on 24 hours per day, Meberg
is suggesting that the trucks could drop off loads when NO staff are present.

Huh?  Meberg must think people in Hinkley are very stupid.  Especially rich is where the Nursery Products guy
says that the Nursery Products facility in Adelanto had 'no problems with dust'.  What?  They had the pants sued off
them for dust odor flies by both Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the City of Adelanto.  Nursery Products
just isn't even pretending to tell the truth.

But Jane Williams, a skilled environmentalist, has entered the fray.  Jane Williams has been awarded the status of "Hometown Hero" by the Ford
Motor Company for her work mobilizing marginalized communities against unnecessary industrial pollution
http://media.ford.com/newsroom/feature_display.cfm?release=22829


I see that EPA has been playing the industry word games about trying to make a distinction between 'sewage sludge' and 'biosolids'.
This is a laugh, since every kind of sewage sludge is called 'sewage sludge' in the US 503 regulations. There is Class sewage sludge and Class B
sewage sludge.   The word 'biosolids' doesn't appear even once.  That is because 'biosolids' is a spin word invented by a public relations firm paid for
by the waste industry.

In fact the sludge industry (sweetly renamed the 'Water Environment Federation') has a 'guidence' document where industry tells its
regulators what to do......here is their guidence page...it includes instructions to call sewage sludge 'biosolids'.

http://www.wef.org/GovernmentAffairs/PolicyPositionStatements/Guidance.htm

It not reassuring that the waste water industry dictates to its regulator .... even down to to redefining the terms used in regulatory language...
and the regulator obeys like an obedient servant.   When the regulator, who is supposed to be the guardian of the public trust and the environment
 is down on one knee to the industry - who will look out for the public and the environment?  

The public will have to do the job of regulating these out - of - control sludge industries.
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