Sludge Watch ==> Calif: Plans for Disposal of Sludge - Issues Reverberate

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

There is a chart - so you might want to read the story online.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20070213-9999-1n13sludge.html


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An unsavory problem

Plans for disposal of sewage remnants raise health concerns
By Mike Lee
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
February 13, 2007



NILAND – A patch of farmland at the edge of this poor and dusty town in 
Imperial County is shaping up as a battleground over how to dispose of 
sludge, the material left over after most water is removed from municipal 
sewage.

The issue reverberates beyond Niland, where residents are split about the 
prospects of building a plant that burns sludge to produce power. No 
comparable facility is operating in California, so the proposed project 
could mark a new era in waste disposal.

The Niland debate also reflects a broader reality: San Diego, Los Angeles, 
Orange and other metropolitan counties are running out of ways to discard 
sludge, or what waste experts politely call “biosolids.”

Californians generate roughly 3 million tons of biosolids each year, then 
spend tens of millions of dollars trying to get rid of them. San Diego's 
Miramar sludge plant, which serves several cities, produces an average of 
110 tons of the thick, smelly residue each day.

It's increasingly hard to find people in or outside California who want 
large quantities of sludge. The product, which is likened to black peanut 
butter, typically has heavy metals such as mercury and traces of 
pharmaceutical products.

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PEGGY PEATTIE / Union-Tribune
Efrain Rendon, 21, sorted okra on his family's farm in Niland. The Imperial 
Valley farm sits across the road from where Liberty Energy seeks to build a 
sludge-burning power plant.
Last year, apprehension about the material's toxicity helped prompt Kern 
County to ban the spreading of sludge on its farms. Spreading biosolids to 
fertilize crops not eaten by people, including cotton and alfalfa, is a 
popular method, along with landfill disposal.

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“We would all feel better if there was better science, because what we are 
seeing at this point is starting to raise concerns,” said David Price, 
director of Kern County's Resource Management Agency.

The Kern County ban is suspended while a federal judge sorts out a legal 
challenge by several entities, including Los Angeles and Orange counties' 
sewage agencies. If successful, the prohibition would cut off a key disposal 
pipeline for millions of Southern Californians. For example, the city of Los 
Angeles runs a large Kern County farm where it spreads some 500 tons of 
sludge daily.

Waste officials in San Diego and other areas worry that a Kern-style 
backlash will spread.

San Diego city sends most of its sludge to the Otay Landfill and ships about 
10 percent to farms in Yuma County. Some people believe it's time to stop 
the stream of trucks bringing biosolids to Arizona.

“Take care of your own poop,” said Rick Stacks, Yuma County's environmental 
health manager.


Seeking new options
As evidence of cities' efforts to diversify, at least seven facilities to 
process or dispose of sludge in a variety of ways are in the works from 
Carlsbad to Kern County. These places would employ methods such as injecting 
biosolids into the ground, burning them for power or producing post-sludge 
pellets for fertilizer.
Agencies need multiple options “because we are seeing that some alternatives 
have gone away and we are seeing costs go up dramatically as a result of 
that,” said Robert Gillette, biosolids expert for the California Association 
of Sanitation Agencies in Sacramento.

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PEGGY PEATTIE / Union-Tribune
Tim Jessop (left) and Chris McCarthy of Liberty Energy walked along the 
fields in Niland where the company wants to build a plant that burns sludge 
to produce power.
San Diego city, which spends about $5 million a year on biosolids disposal, 
pays $40 a ton to get rid of its sludge through land application in Arizona 
or as daily cover material at the landfill. Other reuse options, such as 
turning waste into pellets or composting it, can increase the cost by 50 
percent or more.

...............
San Diego is among the many cities facing uncertainty about sludge because 
it relies heavily on one disposal method. With about three years left on 
their sludge contract for the landfill, the city's officials are monitoring 
other disposal systems being developed in Carlsbad, Rialto, Niland and 
elsewhere.

“We all need to look at diversification of disposal methods so that if one 
shuts down we can sort of seamlessly move into another,” said Lori Vereker, 
a top official in San Diego's Metropolitan Wastewater Department.

The project in Carlsbad belongs to the Encina Wastewater Authority, which 
processes wastewater from several cities in North County. The authority's 
general manager, Mike Hogan, said his agency is building a facility for 
drying sludge. The goal is to turn biosolids into fertilizer pellets safe 
enough for use at homes and on golf courses.

“We wanted to come up with a more long-term solution where we had more 
control of our destiny,” Hogan said.


Fighting Liberty
In Niland, the debate over the proposed Liberty XX power plant is the kind 
that commonly divides small towns when a new industrial suitor comes 
calling.
Supporters of the power plant, which might cost more than $90 million to 
build, said it would be a beacon pointing toward the region's future as a 
center for alternative energy. Currently, geothermal plants dot the northern 
edge of the county near where the sludge facility would sit.

The company behind the project is Liberty Energy, a division of McCarthy 
Family Farms Inc. of Bakersfield. It's also trying to build sludge-based 
power plants in the Central Valley and Ontario, Canada.

San Diego sludge could end up at Liberty XX, but the firm's chief executive 
officer said he's not negotiating with potential suppliers yet.

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PEGGY PEATTIE / Union-Tribune
Martha Mata, a critic of the sludge-burning plant, talked about how the 
proposed power-generating facility has sparked controversy in Niland.
The company's officials make Liberty XX sound like the type of facility that 
many communities would embrace: The plant would generate enough electricity 
for about 10,000 homes, create 132 “high-paying, full-time jobs” and bring 
roughly $20 million a year in economic benefits such as property taxes, 
paychecks and construction spending.

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

Liberty Energy promises to use top technologies to remove mercury and other 
pollutants from air emissions, haul sludge in covered trailers to limit the 
spread of bad smells and build dikes around its property to prevent the 
runoff of sludge-laden stormwater.

“We think it's a very sound solution to a number of problems,” said CEO 
Wilson E. Nolan.

But critics of Liberty XX said the proposed incinerator, and the trucks 
serving it, would worsen the already high rates of air and water pollution 
in Niland and surrounding parts of Imperial County. They fear the end result 
would be rising rates of asthma and other health ailments in their region.

About 14 percent of Imperial County's 160,000 residents were diagnosed with 
asthma in 2005, state estimates show. On average, the county generates the 
equivalent of 36 truckloads of air-polluting particles every day. That's 
about twice the amount generated in San Diego County, according to state 
figures.


“We are being bombarded by numerous problems in our community and this just 
adds to it,” said Rosie Nava, who runs a nonprofit children's health 
advocacy center in the town of Imperial and spearheads opposition to the 
plant.
She fears the Liberty plant would turn Imperial County into a septic tank 
for areas such as San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles counties. Since the 
facility was proposed, Nava said, she and her allies have convinced the city 
councils of several cities near Niland to reject the idea of a 
sludge-burning plant. Now, she's supporting an Imperial County ballot 
measure that would ban importation of sludge and likely make the Liberty XX 
concept moot.

“(The facility) is kind of a demonstration project,” Nava said. “It's 
marketed as pollution-free, but there is no evidence, historical or 
anecdotal, to show that it is.”



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Mike Lee: (619) 542-4570; mike.lee at uniontrib.com

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20070213-9999-1n13sludge.html