Sludge Watch ==> New Hampshire Rule Change - switch to Public Relations Spin for Sludges?

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

                July 14,2006

To: New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services

From: The New Hampshire Sierra Club

Re: Rule Changes to Env-Ws-800

   The New Hampshire Sierra Club appreciates the opportunity to comment 
about the rule changes to Env-Ws-800, which propose changing the term 
“treated municipal sewage sludge” to “biosolids, ” and the term  “industrial 
paper mill sludge” to “short paper fiber.”

ENV-WQ 802.06

   “Biosolids” is not the correct legal or regulatory term for this 
contaminated waste. The federal regulatory documents refer to land applied 
sludge, as  “treated municipal sewage sludge” or “sewage sludge that meets 
the land application requirements as stipulated in CFR 40  Part 503, or just 
plain “sewage sludge.”

   In 1991, the sewerage industry, paid a public relations firm to conduct a 
name changing contest, not to clarify what sewage sludge is, but to “ make 
the practice of land applying this contaminated waste product more 
acceptable to the public.”(1) A professor at the University of Arizona 
invented the name “biosolids.” Subsequently, the sewerage industry and the 
companies profiting from land application intensely lobbied a number of 
publishing companies to include the word “biosolids” in their dictionaries.  
In short, the term “biosolids” is a recent invention to verbally detoxify a 
material that the Federal Clean Water Act has always defined as “a 
pollutant.”(2).

   Whereas “treated municipal sewage sludge” or sewage sludge that is land 
applied clearly describes the nature and source of this material, the word 
“biosolids” needs to be described and defined before it can be understood; 
this is leading to considerable confusion among the public, legislators, and 
regulators.  Even in the peer reviewed scientific literature, “biosolids” 
denotes very different materials. For example “biosolids”  has been used to 
refer to animal manures, to septage, to a number of different industrial 
waste products, or simply to “marketable residuals products.”

   Most publications now interchange the terms “biosolids”and “land applied 
sludge.”  However, several regulatory agencies and those promoting land 
application, have transformed the confusion about the two terms into 
outright deception by assuring concerned neighbors next to land application 
sites that what is being spread is not treated sludge but biosolids.

   To avoid this confusion in terminology, we strongly urge DES, to use the 
more accurate federal and legally correct term “land-applied municipal 
sewage sludge. “Biosolids” is clearly a promotional term, prescribing rather 
than describing a controversial material; state regulatory agencies should 
not be in the business of promoting a practice or product that they regulate 
by changing the name of the product.   This is especially relevant to land 
application of sewage sludge, since EPA is no longer promoting sludge 
farming because of serious questions that have been raised by the scientific 
community and the public about the safety, benefits, and sustainability of 
this increasingly controversial practice.

ENV-WSQ 802.05

   The term “beneficial” used in conjunction with the New Hampshire 
definition of “biosolids” in RSA 485-A:2 XII - XII and in the proposed rule 
changes is also advocacy, reflecting a viewpoint no longer shared by the 
scientific community, and should be deleted from all references in the New 
Hampshire  rules and statutes. Neither the National Academy of Sciences, nor 
any of the various dictionary definitions of the word “biosolids” use the 
adjective “beneficial.”(3) Furthermore, the NH Sierra Club believes that 
using the word “beneficial” in the New Hampshire statutes and rules may 
violate the intent of the NH General Court. In 2000 a bill establishing a 
beneficial use and promotion policy for sludge farming was defeated in 
committee and by the General Court. (4)

ENV-WSQ 802:33

   Just as “biosolids” is an attempt to verbally detoxify a complex 
contaminated waste product, so “short paper fiber” covers up the fact that 
this material is an industrial waste product. There are virtually no peer 
reviewed scientific papers, or risk assessments dealing with the risks of 
land applying paper mill sludges.  The material is quite different from 
sewage sludge and should not even be governed by the same rules or 
regulations. Its use in NH has led to some serious ground water 
contamination problems (5).

Finally, the New Hampshire Sierra Club hopes that in the next rule making or 
legislative session, the NH DES and the General Court will move beyond 
terminology and focus on substantive issues that will address the many 
serious weaknesses in the state’s land application management rules, and 
incorporate the 2002 and 2003 recommendations of the national Sierra 
Club.(6) We also urge DES to explore and consider 21st century solutions to 
managing the state’s unrecyclable wastes (7).  “Long-term, a policy that 
deliberately adds persistent pollutants to the nation’s farm and forest soil 
is indefensible.”(8)

References:
1.    Wikipedia definition of biosolids:
“The Water Environment Federation (WEF) formally recognized the term 
biosolids in 1991 and it is in common use throughout the world as of 2004. 
The Water Environment Federation is the water and wastewater industry's main 
trade and lobby organization in the USA. "Biosolids" is the term created in 
1991 by the "Name Change Task Force" at WEF to make the land application of 
processed sewage sludge more acceptable to the U.S. public. Biosolids are 
the nutrient rich solid material that is produced during the treatment of 
domestic wastewater at a treatment facility. Solid materials are removed 
from sewage during the wastewater treatment process. During treatment, 
bacteria and other microorganisms break components in the wastewater down 
into simpler and more stable forms of organic matter. Non-organic matter 
also settles into sludge. For instance, heavy metals and other toxic 
materials, including flame retardants (PBDEs) and persistent organic 
pollutants, are commonly found in sewage sludge. What does not settle into 
sludge leaves the treatment facility as a treated wastewater effluent. 
According to USEPA, biosolids that meet treatment and pollutant content 
criteria "can be safely recycled and applied as fertilizer to sustainably 
improve and maintain productive soils and stimulate plant growth." EPA 
policy on sewage sludge recycling is highly controversial. Often thought to 
consist of only "human waste," sewage sludge, or its public relations term, 
"biosolids," in fact contains all materials from cities which the treatment 
can remove from wastewater. After the 1991 Congressional ban on ocean 
dumping, the USEPA instituted a policy of disposing of sludge on 
agricultural land. EPA promoted this policy by presenting it as recycling. 
But with more and more incidents of illness reported, there has been 
increasing concern among scientists about the disposal of sewage sludge on 
land.
2. Snyder C. The Dirty Work of Promoting “Recycling” of America’s Sewage 
Sludge.
International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health (2005) 11,4 
page 148.

3. The National Research Council, Biosolids Applied to Land (2002) National 
Academy Press. Page 13: biosolids: sewage sludge that has been treated to 
meet the land application standards in the Part 503 rule or any other 
equivalent land-application standards.”

Marriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (1998) biosolids: “organic matter 
recovered from a sewage treatment process and used esp. as fertilizer.”

New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998): biosolids: “organic matter recycled 
from sewage especially for use in agriculture.”

The American Heritage Dictionary. biosolids: “Solid or semisolid material 
obtained from treated wastewater, often used as fertilizer”.

4. HB 1252(2000) An Act establishing a beneficial use policy for wastewater 
sludge.

5. Rueggeberg C. et al The Sludge Scam (Part 2) New Hampshire Sierran   
pages 6-7.

6.  Sierra Club Guidance on the Land Application of Sewage Sludges.(2002) 
and EPA Response to the NRC Report “Biosolids Applied to Land.”  Public 
Comment and Recommendations to the US EPA from the Sierra Club. May 21, 
2003.

7. The Sludge Scam (Part 2) page 8.



Prepared by Caroline Synder PhD