Sludge Watch ==> Cornell - New Paper on Organic Chemicals in Sewage Sludge

[Maureen Reilly]

Cornell Waste Management Institute have a new paper out on organic chemicals in sewage 
sludges.  It is in press at Science of the Total Environment 
and it is posted it on the Cornell WWW site.

Here are the URLs as they appear on the sludge page: 
http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/Sludge.html

paper:   http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/sludge/organicchemicals.pdf
supporting info 1:  http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/sludge/support1.xls
supporting info 2:  http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/sludge/support2.xls


Chemicals in Sewage Sludges 

Ellen Z. Harrison1*, Summer Rayne Oakes1, Matthew Hysell1, and Anthony Hay2 

1Cornell Waste Management Institute, Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Rice Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853 
2Cornell University, Department of Microbiology and Institute for Comparative and Environmental Toxicology, Ithaca, NY 14853 *Author to whom correspondence should be sent: email: ezh1 at cornell.edu; 607-255-8576; fax: 607-255-8207

Abstract: 

Sewage sludges are residues resulting from the treatment of waste water released from various sources including homes, industries, medical facilities, street runoff and businesses. Sewage sludges contain nutrients and organic matter that can provide soil benefits and are widely used as soil amendments. They also, however, contain contaminants including metals, pathogens, and organic pollutants. Although current regulations require pathogen reduction and periodic monitoring for some metals prior to land application, there is no requirement to test sewage sludges for the presence of organic chemicals in the U. S. To help fill the gaps in knowledge regarding the presence and concentration of organic chemicals in sewage sludges, the peer-reviewed literature and official governmental reports were examined. Data were found for 516 organic compounds which were grouped into 15 classes. Concentrations were compared to EPA risk-based soil screening limits (SSLs) where available. For 6 of the 15 classes of chemicals identified, there were no SSLs. For the 79 reported chemicals which had SSLs, the maximum reported concentration of 86% exceeded at least one SSL. Eighty-three percent of the 516 chemicals were not on the EPA established list of priority pollutants and 80 percent were not on the EPA's list of target compounds. Thus analyses targeting these lists will detect only a small fraction of the organic chemicals in sludges.  Analysis of the reported data shows that more data has been collected for certain chemical classes such as pesticides, PAHs and PCBs than for others that may pose greater risk such as nitrosamines.  The concentration in soil resulting from land application of sludge will be a function of initial concentration in the sludge and soil, the rate of application, management practices and losses.  Even for chemicals that degrade readily, if present in high concentrations and applied repeatedly, the soil concentrations may be significantly elevated. The results of this work reinforce the need for a survey of organic chemical contaminants in sewage sludges and for further assessment of the risks they pose. 


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.web.net/archives/sludgewatch-l/attachments/20060623/de597857/attachment.htm 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: organicchemicals.doc
Type: application/msword
Size: 421784 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://list.web.net/archives/sludgewatch-l/attachments/20060623/de597857/attachment.doc