Sludge Watch ==> WERF: New Protocol - Response to Sludge Health Symptoms

[Maureen Reilly]

New Protocol Holds Promise for Timely Response to Symptoms Associated with 
Application of Soil Amendments



For more information, contact:
Dan Woltering
WERF Director of Research
703-684-2470, ext. 2447
dwoltering at werf.org

(ALEXANDRIA, VA) The Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF) has 
completed the first phase of research designed to provide a protocol for 
responding to reports of symptoms of illness by neighbors of sites where 
soil amendments, including biosolids, animal manures, food residuals, 
septage, and compost are applied to land. The Phase 1 research report is 
titled Epidemiologic Surveillance and Investigation of Symptoms of Illness 
Reported by Neighbors of Biosolids Land Application Sites and includes a 
completed draft protocol. The protocol is designed to be used eventually by 
local, state, and federal health and environmental officials. In the second 
phase of research, planned for 2008, the protocol will be field tested by 
environmental and health agencies and subsequently refined based on their 
feedback.

The report and investigation protocol was developed under the lead of 
principal investigator Steve Wing with the University of North Carolina and 
peer reviewed in conjunction with a WERF Project Subcommittee (PSC) that 
included a wide array of stakeholders. They included private citizens and 
community leaders, experts from wastewater facilities, academia, and local, 
state, and federal regulatory and advisory agencies.

WERF and the PSC note that the investigation protocol presented in this 
report will undergo pilot testing and refinements prior to formal acceptance 
and use. WERF recognizes that by publishing the draft protocol, entities 
with an interest in agricultural soil amendments including biosolids may use 
or adapt it for their use prior to completion of the subsequent phases of 
this research. However, this draft protocol has not yet been demonstrated by 
WERF to determine the accuracy of information or conclusions derived from 
implementing the protocol.

Subsequent to pilot testing and refinement of the draft protocol, successful 
implementation at the local, state, and federal levels could provide 
information about the occurrence of reported symptoms near sites where soil 
amendments are applied to land. Implementation of the protocol could also 
help provide the basis for conducting more definitive studies of causal 
links between health effect and human exposures from potential sources. The 
protocol developed for this report is a design for "surveillance" of 
reported symptoms. While surveillance should provide useful information for 
designing more specific epidemiologic studies, implementation of the 
protocol is not intended to be a model for an epidemiological study.

This project was the highest ranked priority at the 2003 WERF Biosolids 
Research Summit, during which a group of 75 individuals representing 
stakeholders from regulatory agencies, conservation groups, wastewater 
facilities, academia, and private citizens identified their most pressing 
research needs regarding land application of biosolids. This Research Summit 
and subsequent research projects respond to a July 2002 report from the 
National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences regarding land 
application of biosolids.

This report is now available for free download from the WERF website at 
www.werf.org.