Sludge Watch ==> Mixing sewage sludge and water treatment sludges - on farms

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Heads up folks!
Looks like the waste industry wants to pull another toxic treat out of the 
hat.
We all know by now that wastewater sludge (sewage sludge) contains a huge 
array of metals, chemicals and dangerous compounds.  Land application has 
been undertaken for this dangerous waste slurry in order to provide cities 
with cheap waste disposal at the expense of the countryside and agriculture.

Not satisfied with visiting these wastes on rural communities, this report 
now opens the door to addition sludge disposal on ag land - water treatment 
plant sludge - the toxins removed from municipally delivered water along 
with the processing chemicals and compounds.

Interesting that this report talks about the sewage sludges risky levels of 
soluable phosphorus.
Phosphorus is a huge problem in sewage sludge. Phosphorus is a compound that 
causes algae blooms and water impairment by promoting plant growth in the 
water.  It can run off from sludged fields and often runs through the 
agricultural tile drains directly into surface water.

Indeed, in Ontario, they Guelph prof who wrote the allowable levels of 
phosphorus in the Nutrient Management Act allowed farmers to build up 
phosphorus on farm land to ridiculous levels. This little known fact allows 
massive application of phosphorus, rather than limiting phosphorus 
application - making the legislation accomplish the opposite of its intent - 
which is to protect water from land applied fertilizer,manure, sludge 
'nutrients'.

Sewage sludge generally contains far more of the plant required phosphorus 
than nitrogen. It is highly unbalanced as a soil ammendment (not to even 
mention the chemicals, metals, toxins, pathogens).  This research studies 
alludes to the risks of phosphorus in land applied sewage sludge.
And it uses this risk to justify further contamination of farm fields with a 
new sludge - water treatment sludge.

Issue - aluminium- has been associated with Alzheimers Disease - a disease 
that was non existant before about 1880.  So why lace farmland with 
aluminium from this sludge?

Other issue - water supplies are often contaminated with toxic compounds, 
like arsenic.  Here is a link to an EPA document that outlines some of those 
risks.  So why encourage land application of this sludge? The EPA standards 
for land application of sludge is so lenient - allows massive levels of 
toxins to be transferred to farm lands - so the addition of more wastes to 
precious farm fields has got to be discouraged.

http://www.epa.gov/safewater/arsenic/pdfs/arsenic_training_2002/train6-residuals.pdf

......................................................................





Soil Scientist Looks At Bringing Sludges Together
Philip Moore Opens Two Day Water Resources Conference


Tuesday, April 24, 2007 9:59 PM CDT in News
By John L. Moore
The Morning News


Philip Moore wants to kill two environmental birds with one stone by 
combining the sludge from drinking water treatment plants with the sludge 
from sewer treatment plants.

The combination can yield a fertilizer that has less soluble phosphorus, 
which could reduce the amount of the nutrient running into streams and 
rivers in Northwest Arkansas, said Moore, a soil scientist with the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture.

Moore spoke at the first of two days of the Arkansas Water Resources 
Center's annual conference in Fayetteville on Tuesday.

The two-day conference brings together scientists from around the region to 
share the latest information on water quality and other environmental 
issues.

Research indicates that soluble phosphorus is the kind most likely to get in 
water running off fields into streams and rivers. Converting the soluble 
phosphorus into insoluble phosphorus could stop much of that problem, he 
said.

Phosphorus can promote rampant algae growth which can result in taste and 
odor problems with the water and damage the aquatic health of a stream or 
lake.

The water treatment residuals, or alum sludge, contain high levels of 
aluminum and the sewer treatment sludge, or biosolids, contain high levels 
of soluble phosphorus.

The phosphorus joins with the aluminum to create compounds that typically 
don't dissolve in water. The phosphorus then stays in the ground where it is 
put and does not get carried into the water as easily, he said.

Poultry companies in the area are engaged in a two-year-old lawsuit over the 
application of poultry litter to fields in the Illinois River watershed. The 
federal court case in Oklahoma was brought in part because of phosphorus 
levels in the river and Lake Tenkiller.

Moore has also done research using alum, or aluminum phosphate, to treat 
poultry litter applied to fields with similar results.

The poultry litter studies found that as much as 75 percent of the 
phosphorus runoff could be eliminated. The process has also been used to 
control ammonia gases in poultry houses.

Other researchers in South Carolina and Pennsylvania have experimented using 
the water treatment sludge on fields recently spread with poultry litter to 
accomplish similar reductions.

Research performed by the USDA's Agriculture Research Survey in Maryland 
found the process applied to wheat fields did not interfere with the wheat's 
ability to take up phosphorus once the roots of the plants got below about 
six inches in depth, the treatment depth of the process.

Using it for wastewater treatment plants in the area could be a possibility, 
but currently Springdale, Rogers and Fayetteville no longer apply their 
sewer sludge to area fields. They use centrifuges and other ways to take 
some of the moisture out of the solids and then transport it to landfills.

Transporting the dewatered sludge, however, is expensive, said Mike 
Lawrence, facility manager of the Rogers Pollution Control Facility.

Lawrence said the research from Moore is promising.

Currently, Rogers is considering a drying system that would further reduce 
the weight of the biosolids.

The drying process would make the sludge much more economical to transport.

"We would need one truckload to haul out what is currently taking about five 
truckloads," Lawrence said.

The heat process would also kill almost all remaining pathogens in the 
sludge turning it into a Class A soil amendment which would allow it to be 
used with few restrictions.

Bentonville still spreads some of its sewer sludge on fields, said Britt 
Vance, utilities director for the city. Vance said they also compost much of 
their sludge to produce a class A product.

He said Moore's research would be something to explore as an alternative if 
the need arose.

"Right now, we plan to continue with the system we have," he said. "But it 
is getting more expensive to find sites for land application and we are 
having to move further and further away from town which increase the hauling 
costs," Vance said.

One of the questions that remains about the process is just how long the 
phosphorus stays insoluble.

Marc Nelson, associate director of the Water Resources Center, said the 
physical and chemical journeys that phosphorus undergo from the time they 
are placed on the land until they end up in area reservoirs is a complicated 
one and scientist aren't sure that the insoluble phosphorus stays that way 
forever.

http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2007/04/24/news/042507waterconfer.txt