Sludge Watch ==> California: Something Stinky Heading into Hinkley - Nursery Products Sludge

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

Something Stinky Heading into Hinkley
South California Sludge Hits the Road

               Nursery Products Sludge ‘Compost’
               Wants huge open sludge compost site in Hinkley, California

In April 2005, residents of the tiny desert community of Newberry Springs
found out that a company called ‘Nursery Products’ wanted to open a sewage
sludge composting site in their community.   The community was outraged.


Now Jeff Meberg of San Clemente, the man behind Nursery Products,
has his eye a site near Hinkley … the town made famous for Chromium 6 
contamination
in the movie about Erin Brockovich.  Nursery Products is looking to bring in 
as much
as 522 truckloads of sewage sludge per day to compost.   The sludge would be 
laid out in
windrows 12 feet high on the desert floor…right over the groundwater near 
the
Mojave River.

The project proposal is extremely vague about amounts…since they don’t 
explain
whether they mean wet weight or dry weight sludge tonnage.  So it would be 
somewhere
between 1,100 to 10,000 wet tons of sludge per day arriving at the site.
This would make it one of the largest sludge compost sites in the USA.  But 
since his
Newberry proposal called for 300 trucks or 4,000 tons per day, and he is now 
looking
at up to 522 trucks per day…it would appear that this proposal is looking 
for a site even more
massive than the one proposed for Newberry Springs.

The proposed site is 8 miles west of Hinkley, near Highway 58 at Kramer 
Junction in
the Mojave Desert.  It is habitat to rare and endangered species like the 
Desert
Tortoise and the Burrowing Owl.

Sludge : Huge Impact on the Desert

The impact on the community and the fragile desert ecology would be
disastrous.  Winds are turbulent in the desert valley…carrying dust and soil
particles far down wind.  The area is a PM10 non attainment zone, which
means that small particulate (less than 10 microns) is already at a level
that is a risk to respiratory health.  The presence of a huge open air
compost site with turning and screening, loading and unloading of pathogenic
sludges and composts will only make the air quality worse.

The leaching of pathogens, chemicals, and sludge thickening compounds could
contaminate the groundwater.  Flash floods and rainstorms could leave the
area swimming in a sewage cesspool.  Bacterial agents used by Nursery
Products called ‘actinomycetes’ are linked to human illness and are
implicated in the demise of the endangered desert tortoise.

Gasses like methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrogen sulphide are emitted by 
decomposing
sludges. The prevailing wind direction would take the sludge odors, gases,
dust, particulate, flies,directly toward Hinkley and the elementary school.
Not only does the stench of decomposing sewage risk making the
community unlivable, the release of the greenhouse gases can contribute to
problems with the ozone layer and climate change.  This kind of open air
composting is no longer allowed in other parts of California.

What is sludge? (pretty name: ‘biosolids’)

Sewage sludge is the combination of toilet waste and industrial waste
(industry, hospitals, abattoirs, chemical plants, etc) that enters a sewer.
Wastewater treatment plants take the grey sewage and work to separate the
water from the variety of chemicals and compounds.  The stuff that is
removed from sewage – is sludge.  The smelly matrix is difficult to dispose
of:  historically the material was land filled or incinerated.

In the 1990’s there was a move by the US Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) together with the waste industry to recast sewage sludge as a usable
‘fertilizer’ despite the pathogens and contamination in the sludge…and the
Clean Water Act brought forth a relaxed regulatory framework called the Part
503 regulations.

For a good understanding of how this process took place go to ‘The Sludge
Hits the Fan’ from ‘Toxic Sludge is Good for You’:

http://www.ejnet.org/sludge/sludge.html

And see Caroline Snyder’s excellent paper
The Dirty Work of Promoting 'Recyling' of America's Sewage Sludge

www.ijoeh.com/pfds/IJOEH_1104_Snyder.pdf

In California development and population growth means that there is more
sewage and more sewage sludge being produced daily.  The big sanitation
districts in Southern California are looking for cheap disposal….but not in
their own backyard.  Over the past 10 years more and more counties have
passed ordinances that limit the kind of sludge that can be land applied.
Most counties place environmental controls on sludge composting or treatment
facilities.

Currently much of the sewage sludge from Southern California is going to
Kern County in the area around Bakersfield.  However Kern County has a huge
aquifer.   Sludge spreading or processing could contaminate that water.
This water contamination risk is increasingly unacceptable to the
environmental agencies, politicians, and the public in Kern County.   There
is huge popular support for initiatives by Senator Florez to stop the sludge
trucks from coming to Kern County.  On June 6, Kern will vote to kick out 
the sludge
sites spreading any kind of sludge on unincorporated county lands.  And they 
will win.

See: www.keepkernclean.com



Southland Sludges – Looking for Cheap Disposal

As more communities pass restrictions on sludge, sludge haulers look to the
Mojave Desert as the last resort for the most toxic disposal/processing
sites.   While the South Coast Air Quality Management District will not
allow any open air commercial composting of sludge or greenwaste, the Mojave
Air Quality Monitoring District has failed to implement such a requirement.
Protection of the environment and public health from sludge tends to be lax
in San Bernardino County. The County of San Bernardino Land Use Planning
Department has made it clear that they don’t intend to enforce the Sludge
Landspreading Ordinance, that would require permits for sludged lands.

As jurisdictions tighten up sludge regulations, Southland cities like Los
Angeles and Orange County are sending sludge trucks to the hinterland - into
sites in San Bernardino County California, and La Paz and Yuma County 
Arizona, where
non compliant companies like Nursery Products and Yakima Compost fail to
obey the conditions of their permits and contracts.  The sludge companies
drain the public coffers with private litigation while the regulators of
sludge fail to enforce the regulations that are supposed to protect public
health and the environment.

Nursery Products – Poor Track Record

Nursery Products had a sludge composting site in Adelanto.  This site was
only permitted to take one tenth of the sludge proposed for this Hinkley 
site.
Even this smallish Adelanto  site generated so many complaints of illness,
flies, dust, and odor that it was forced to stop taking sludge.  On August
9th, 2005 the City of Adelanto was granted a preliminary injunction by the
courts.  The site was required to close by September 1, 2005.

Having missed this deadline, they closed at the end of 2005.  Some Adelanto
Residents were so ill from the site that they were forced to abandon their 
home.
Children in school had lunches crawling with flies.  San Bernardino Mother 
and Child
Centre had to issue every staffer with a flyswatter …..inside a closed air 
conditioned
building a mile away.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power sued Nursery Products because 
of
the severe offsite impacts…dust, flies, odor…were so bad that they could not 
get trucks to
deliver equipment to the site, heath and safety was compromised, and there 
was a risk
of electrical failure to the South California grid from flashover due to the 
particulate and
corrosive emissions. See the testimony at the California Integrated Waste 
Management Board:

http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Agendas/MtgDocs/2003/10/00012940.pdf

Dumping has already started at the Hinkley site.

There are photographs of chipped treated wood and particle board…illegal 
materials…
already dumped at the proposed sludge site near Hinkley.

See:  http://www.norman.locations.org/hinkley/

Another site has sprung up... http://stopnurseryproducts.bravehost.com/

In Adelanto…it seems that the berms around the site were made with soil from
TPS Technologies, Adelanto– a facility that takes contaminated soil….often 
hydrocarbon and lead
contamination  from old gas stations … and heats it to burn off the 
hydrocarbon.
Who knows what lead and other contaminants remain in the soil.  These 
recovered contaminated
soils were used to build the berm around the Adelanto Nursery Products site. 
  Indeed, it seems that Nursery Products is a subsidiary of TPS Technologies 
(Jeff Meberg worked with them in Belgium).

And sometimes sludge is mixed with the hot contaminated soil…as a 
‘treatment’ to process sludge!

	www.ocsd.com/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=3172
	“TPS Technologies Inc.TPS Technologies is a subsidiary of
	Thermo Processing Systems, which has nine soil recycling facilities in the 
U.S.,
	including the contaminated soil thermal processing plant and green waste
	composting facility located at Adelanto, near Mojave, California. This 
thermal
	processing facility has one rotary drum dryer unit, and the proposal is to 
mix
	the biosolids with the soil prior to treatment. The dryer operates at a
	temperature of 650°F to 750°F, and the dried product that exits the dryer 
is
	stockpiled, where it maintains a temperature over 200°F for 3 hours or 
more. If
	the dryer is out of service for maintenance, the biosolids could be 
diverted to
	the composting facility; “


Do you want dried sludge ‘compost’ deposited all over the desert?

The site itself isn’t the only concern.  If you allow this massive 
importation of toxic
sewer wastes into the High Desert…they will want to dispose of the sludge 
from
the site all over the Mojave High Desert.  The winds will pick up the sludge 
from
the site, from the storage, from the disposal farms and fields, and blow it 
up
and down the Valley.  It could have terrible impacts on the Desert Tortoise.
The Desert Tortoise is sensitive to mycoplasma infections of the respiratory
tract, and sewage sludge is a source of mycoplasma.  Heavy metals and 
pathogens
and sanitizers will all impact the delicate balance of desert ecology.  Even 
the presence
of high levels of plant nutrients….phosphorus and nitrogen…can wreck havoc 
in
typical desert flash floods.



What to Do with Sludges?

Sewage sludge, biosolids...call them what you will.  Where should they go?
In the long run new policies are needed to protect water resources. In a
desert climate like California water is precious.  Drinking quality water
should not be used to flush wastes indiscriminately into a sewer.  Industry
should manage its own liquid wastes and as a culture we need to look at
making waterless toilets to address both urban and rural sanitation
requirements.

What to do with the current volume of sludge? The Southlands Sanitation
Districts should be processing and managing their sewage wastes …with
enclosed facilities equipped with biofilters and air quality controls.

There are initiatives to use sludges, manures, rendering
wastes, and other biomass as renewable fuel sources of green energy.   There
needs to be an end to the hauling of sludge for land application  in small 
rural
communities that are ill equipped to defend themselves or the environment.

Sludging up Hinkley, Newberry Springs, Adelanto, Kern County, and 
Quartzsite,
Brenda, La Paz County, Yuma,  Arizona….these practices are unacceptable and 
should be
stopped.

The desert is a dynamic and fragile ecosystem and needs to be protected from
those who think it is a handy graveyard for urban waste..

If you allow one of these sludge sites to enter your community it is 
extremely hard
to regulate them or close them.

HOW TO COMMENT:

There is a scoping consultation underway on the EIR to determine what 
impacts need to be
studied.  Your remarks on what needs to be part of the scoping of the 
Environmental
Impact Report has to in writing to Advanced Planning at San Bernardino 
County before June 8th 2006.  If you need  more time to respond, ask San 
Bernardino Advanced Planning to extend the comment period.

See the documents:
http://www.co.san-bernardino.ca.us/landuseservices/Public%20Notices/Projects/Projects.htm
See the Initial Study at the Barstow Library or at the San Bernardino County 
Land Use Planning Office in San Bernardino.  The San Bernardino County Land 
Use Planning  website misdirects the public to the wrong EIR Notice of 
Preparation. So the public really needs more time to sort it out.

If you responded to the Newberry Springs proposal….YOU MUST RESPOND 
SEPARATELY TO
THE HINKLEY SITE PROPOSED EIR.  Your comments will not be considered unless 
you reframe
them in regard to  this new site proposal.


Contact Carrie Hyke,
Supervising Planner
San Bernardino County Land Use Services Department
Advanced Planning Division
tel 909 387 4147
fax 909 387 3223
chyke at lusd.sbcounty.gov


Make your voice heard to agencies, governments and politicians.



If you want to speak with the proponent …he can be contacted at:

Nursery Products
Principal Jeff. Meberg. 647 Camino de los Mares #108-174.
San Clemente
California 92673
Email: jmeberg at cox.net
jmeberg at mycingular.blackberry.net
tel 949 366 2155


For More Information Contact
Maureen Reilly
Maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca

May 28, 2006