Sludge Watch ==> Toronto Canada - Enviros Mired in Poop Debate over Sludge Border Backup

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

NOW Magazine
Toronto Ontario

Flush with sludge
Enviros mired in poop debate over sewage backup at the border
By ADRIA VASIL

It must be lonely being sludge. No one wants you near them. People protest 
your arrival, especially when you come from the toilets of the largest 
metropolis in the country and stand accused of being particularly pungent – 
and toxic. Since word got out last month that Michigan's citizens would no 
longer tolerate the stinky stew of Canadian sewage coming across the border 
after August 1, Toronto has been scrambling for alternatives. Then, just 
last week, the province announced that it was green-lighting the 
mega-expansion of a private dump outside London. While Londoners grimace and 
T.O. waste reps celebrate, environmentalists are equally divided. Some say 
we should put the sludge to good use and spread it on farms as fertilizer. 
Others argue that landfilling is the only real green choice. Either way, the 
shit is surely set to hit the fan. ***

If you listen to Toronto officials spin it, you'd think nearly all our 
sludge has been pleasantly fertilizing the fields of Ontario through what is 
euphemistically called "beneficial reuse." Municipal wastewater engineer 
Nancy Fleming echoes the city mantra, "If we can't apply [sludge] to 
agricultural land, we send it to our contingency plan, which is landfill." 
But it seems our backup plan is the recipient of the vast majority (38,000 
dry tonnes annually, or 15 trucks a day), while only 5,000 tonnes goes to 
beneficial reuse. Municipal politicians would rather choke on a bone than 
admit the city has had trouble marketing the benefits of smearing sewage 
cake on fields, even though they've been handing the stuff out for free. 
They're even reviving the notorious sludge pelletizier that burned down in 
2003 in hopes of pushing the combustible dry pellets on farms again. But 
farmers aren't biting. In fact, about a dozen county agricultural 
federations across the province are asking their members to stop taking 
sludge from places like T.O. .

However, Deputy Mayor Sandra Bussin insists it's not so much that the sludge 
is unpopular with farmers – in fact, she says, "they actually want it." The 
problem, she says, is that the Ministry of Environment has been slow to 
provide individual certificates of approval for land applications. "It's a 
political thing. Our sludge is good sludge, probably the best in the 
province."

But is it really? Some environmentalists aren't convinced. "Because so many 
businesses dump toxins down the sewers and so many hazardous household 
products go down the sewers, our sludge can't be treated in the ideal way, 
which would be to compost it and put it back onto farms," says Gord Perks of 
the Toronto Environmental Alliance (TEA).

Perks feels there's only one ecologically responsible option. "Technically, 
what you do as an environmentalist when you're left with something you can't 
reuse, recycle or compost is find a way of disposing or storing it that 
minimizes the risk of its dispersal into the broader environment. In this 
case, that means landfill."

Perks says the Greenlane landfill in London that was recently given the 
go-ahead for expansion by the province is a reasonably well-maintained site.

"It's never good news that we have to find new landfill space," says Perks, 
"but if I were in Anytown, Ontario, and my options were either that Toronto 
sewage sludge be spread on land in my community or in a landfill near my 
community, I'd always take landfill."

But this is where TEA and greenies at the NDP diverge. NDP environment 
critic Toronto-Danforth MPP Peter Tabuns points out that the city's 
municipal sewage bylaw has, surprisingly, improved matters since it was 
implemented in 2000.

"The sewer use bylaw has actually done an awful lot to reduce toxics loading 
in the sewage system," says Tabuns. "The medical officer of health has said 
he's seen a substantial drop in heavy metals." Adds Tabuns, "If the medical 
officer of health feels sludge can be applied to land at this point, I would 
say it's probably a safe bet."

The MPP notes that Toronto does have a problem with pharmaceuticals being 
flushed down toilets, making our sludge drug-laden. His take? "We'd like to 
see stricter [provincial] pollution prevention laws so Toronto has a very 
good method – not landfill or incineration – for disposing of its sewage 
sludge."

Ah, yes, incineration, that old devil. As much as politicians talk about 
firing up our garbage, no one's openly jumping on the topic of burning our 
sewage. Still, Maureen Reilly of Sludge Watch argues that urbanites have 
been forcing poor rural communities to deal with our waste, in landfill or 
land application, when an urban solution is at hand. "There shouldn't be 
confusion between old incinerator technology and new biomass and 
gasification and plasma arch techniques. The new European technologies 
gather up the contaminants and have a very small ecological footprint."

Eco-heads like Perks, of course, are quick to disagree. "These people who 
talk about new European incinerators have to stop taking the word of the 
incinerator industry and start listening to what European environmentalists 
are saying.

"There are and always have been vast numbers of environmental organizations 
in Europe that are fighting to stop the incineration of waste."

Other options for sludge do exist, and a couple of committees (one 
citizen-run looking at all waste issues and one led by Bussin strictly on 
sludge) are dreaming up long-term alternatives to the alternatives. Sludge 
can be used to neutralize acidic mine tailings and cap old abandoned mines 
with mounds of the stuff, or can be burnt as fuel in cement kilns. An 
Israeli company is even looking at ways of extracting oil from sludge and 
turning it into gasoline, and Japan has long been making sludge bricks. 
Enviros are keeping a watchful eye on the alternatives, trying to ensure 
that in our quest to avoid politically unpopular options we don't jump at 
the unknown.

Though the Greenlane deal with Toronto isn't done yet, London area 
politicans have made it clear they don't want our sludge anywhere near them. 
T.O. works committee chair Councillor Shelley Carroll says the city feels 
for them.

"There's going to be some protest around any landfill when a high-profile 
client moves in, and we take that seriously." Their only consolution right 
now? "We have a strong environmental community that questions our practices 
whether we're dumping sludge here or somewhere else."

And that community has less than a month to speak up.   the end

adriav at nowtoronto.com

NOW | JULY 6 - 12, 2006 | VOL. 25 NO. 45