Sludge Watch ==> Florida - Land for Sludge gets Flushed Away

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Here is another Florida story.  It accurately documents the increasing 
difficulty in finding agricultural sites to spread sludge in rapidly 
developing communities.  Land development - housing- malls - these land uses 
are not compatible with sludge spreading.  I am deeply worried about the 
safety of building homes and subdivisions on properties that are former 
sludging sites and pastures.  We know that there can be heavy metals issues, 
long lived parasites, and long term virus survival in the sludged soils.

Will we be seeing the kinds of illnesses that have been seen in Riverside 
California where houses are built on sludged lands or with sludge composts?

So if land application is more and more costly and less and less publicly 
acceptable as a fertilizer or as a land use practice...then what to do with 
the sludges?  Sure they can go into landfill.  But they can also be used as 
a biomass fuel (along with clean construction wood waste, bark, rice hulls, 
or other BTU enhancements)  and can be part of a renewable energy source.   
This is the approach Europe is taking.   Or it can be digested down to a 
small residual and the methane and volatiles can be removed that way...and 
the spent material or ash can be landfilled with only 10-20 percent of the 
original mass.  Many wastewater plants currently use the methane and other 
gases for heating uses but very few do a complete digestion cycle.  Most 
just do the minimum...about 15 days in the digester....and that leaves lots 
of Class B sludge to get rid of.

Its time to rethink our wastewater systems...because we are going through 
our clean water at an astonishing and unsustainable rate - and we are 
creating wastewater effluents (reclaimed water) and sludges that are a 
challenge to manage.  Its costing more and more every day to do the wrong 
thing (land application of sludge)...so it makes sense to go back to the 
drawing board and find a better way....that includes rethinking our use of 
water to flush waste.
.................................

http://www.sun-herald.com/NewsArchive4/051406/tp5de5.htm?date=051406&story=tp5de5.htm

05/14/06
Land for sludge gets flushed away


SCOTTSMOOR, Fla. (AP) -- Roy Roberts is sorry his father sold off the family 
ranch.

For him, the sale signals the demise of ranching in northern Brevard County 
as development works its way into the rural oasis of cattle ranches and 
orange groves.

For the rest of Brevard, the sale presents a bigger problem: It reduces by 
about 130 acres the amount of land available for dumping sludge, what's left 
after human waste -- feces -- is chemically treated to reduce the harmful 
organisms and toxic metals.

''It's a dying way of life,'' Roberts said. ''Along with that dies the idea 
of where you get rid of this sludge.''

And the same problem is occurring in DeSoto and Sarasota counties on the 
west coast.

Florida is running out of places to dump its sludge. Developers are building 
on lands that have been used to spread sludge output from wastewater 
treatment plants, forcing counties and cities to scramble for less desirable 
land for dumping or turn to more expensive ways to treat and dispose of the 
waste.

Also, communities that have accepted that sludge have sued or tried to pass 
laws blocking the spreading of sludge near them -- fearing their air and 
water is contaminated with disease-causing pathogens that make their 
families sick.

And local governments are passing stricter regulations making it harder to 
spread.

''We have this burgeoning population around us,'' said Phil Kane, residuals 
coordinator for the central district of the state Department of 
Environmental Protection. ''That means more residuals, not less.''

State environmental regulators are reviewing how sludge is treated, 
classified and disposed of. Stricter rules could make accepting sludge less 
attractive to landowners. And that could force wastewater treatment plants 
to purify sewage to a more commercially sellable grade.

County wastewater managers in Brevard have formed a task force with local 
cities to see if they can afford to build a new plant that would produce 
high-grade commercially sellable sludge in cake or pellet form.

If they do that, it would eliminate the need to haul and spread liquid 
wastewater around the state. And that would save taxpayers money.

''Fuel costs are driving it up, and there are fewer and fewer land 
application sites,'' said Dick Martens, the county's utilities director.

Florida wastewater plants produce 300,000 tons of sludge a year, up from 
about 270,000 tons five years ago. About 83 percent of that -- 250,000 tons 
a year -- is sold to fertilizer companies or spread directly on agricultural 
lands, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Two-thirds of that is sprayed onto farmlands and pastures.

''Most of your cattle graze on grass grown with residuals,'' Kane said. ''A 
lot of your citrus and sod, too.''

But as suburbia expands into those traditional farmlands, the types of 
farming and ranching activities that were once acceptable no longer fit the 
changing landscape of tract houses and strip malls.

''Every day we're losing new sites,'' Kane said.

Statewide, about half of the 459 permitted land-application sites have 
become inactive, according to Department of Environmental Protection 
records.

Much of that was lost to development, said Maurice Barker, the statewide 
residuals coordinator.

''With population growth you've got ranch acres being developed,'' he said.

As more ranchland is developed, more people live closer to sludge-dumping 
sites, he said. They complain, the rancher decides it's not worth fighting 
public opinion and stops accepting sludge, or the local government makes 
tougher restrictions.

''If there's sewage with a lot of toxic matter and heavy metals, it's 
exposed to air and subject to leaching,'' said Zhenli He, a University of 
Florida professor at the Indian River Research and Education Center in Fort 
Pierce. ''There can be a potential influence on health or quality of the 
water.''

For example, 12 sites in Sarasota County stopped accepting sludge when its 
commission passed tougher restrictions on spreading sludge, Barker said. 
More than 20 sites in neighboring Manatee County stopped taking sludge for 
the same reasons.

''Landowners decided they didn't want to take any more,'' he said.

Now they ship to Okeechobee County's landfill.

DeSoto County lost about 20,000 acres in one year, when a company involved 
in a civil lawsuit stopped dumping on land there. The volume of sludge 
dumped in DeSoto dropped 81 percent in one year.

There are only two things you can do with wastewater sludge, Martens said. 
You can spread it on agricultural lands or solidify it and send it to the 
landfill.

Sending it to the landfill requires upgrades to purify the sludge. How much 
you purify depends on how much you want to spend. It takes heat and heat 
costs money. About 23 plants in Florida produce the higher-grade residuals.

Shipping it to the landfill may be the best and cheapest alternative to land 
application. As farmlands disappear to development, the sludge will wind up 
in the landfills where it could be used to speed the decay of garbage, 
Martens predicted.


By JEFF SCHWEERS

Florida Today