Sludge Watch ==> Older sewer pipes may harbor PCB sludge

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Sewers are the liquid wastes of our toxic civilization.
Here in Canada, the Wastewater industry is promoting sludge with happy talk 
about recycling sewer nutrients back into the communities where they come 
from.

Well,folks.  Spreading public parks with contamination is what that policy 
looks like in practice.
Now there is concern about more areas where Milwaukee sludges have been 
dumped.

PCB testing is not done very frequently on sewage sludge.  With only 
sporatic testing (if any testing for PCBs are done) this kind of 
contamination may be happening very widely in North America.
............................................................


Sewers may harbor PCBs
Cleaning crews might have dislodged toxic chemicals later found in 
fertilizer
By DON BEHM
dbehm at journalsentinel.com
Posted: July 26, 2007
When the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District learned Thursday that 
cleaning crews likely dislodged the toxic chemicals that later tainted 
sewage-sludge fertilizer, it also confronted the reality of a much larger 
problem: Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, might have accumulated over 
decades in aging sewers running through the region's industrial heartland.

PCBs
Recent Coverage
7/26/07: Fertilizer stock dries up
7/25/07: MPS closes 25 athletic fields
7/25/07: Editorial: PCB contamination: A good response so far
7/23/07: EPA to collect park samples
7/20/07: Chemicals in fertilizer shut parts of parks

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Buy a link hereIf so, the toxic chemicals could be sitting in the bottom of 
miles of sewers and waiting to be unearthed by cleaning crews in the future, 
officials said.

The sewerage district now is scrambling to map areas where manufacturers and 
other companies, some long closed, might have used products containing PCBs 
or recycled those products. Those maps will aid sewer cleaning projects in 
the future, said Peter Topczewski, water quality protection manager for the 
sewerage district.

Thick, oily mounds of sediment encountered by cleaning crews in two sewers 
were tested and found to contain high levels of PCBs, he said Thursday. 
Futile attempts to vacuum the gunk off the bottom of the pipes might have 
freed the chemicals, which then flowed to the Jones Island sewage treatment 
plant and ended up in sewage-sludge fertilizer.

The sewerage district's preliminary investigation indicates the chemicals 
settled to the bottom of long stretches of the pipes over decades, he said.

For that reason, the PCBs likely did not come from recent illegal dumping, 
Topczewski said. PCBs have not been manufactured in the United States since 
1977 and were banned from all uses in 1979.

Tests of a dozen samples of "oily" gunk removed from a city combined sewer 
along N. 31st St., between W. Auer Ave. and W. Townsend St., found 
concentrations of PCBs from 8.4 parts per million to 290 parts per million, 
he said. A City of Milwaukee crew began cleaning the sewer in early June.

Three sediment samples taken from a large regional sewer that runs along W. 
Hampton Ave. to the Milwaukee River and down Humboldt Blvd. contained 
between 25 and 37 parts per million of PCBs.

U.S. regulations prohibit use of sewage sludge as fertilizer if it has more 
than 10 parts per million of PCBs.

Crews were cleaning both sewers in early June, and tests have now confirmed 
that PCBs in sewage-sludge fertilizer produced on Jones Island quickly built 
to unhealthful levels in mid-June, Topczewski said.

The inside of many older sewers are uncharted territories because they have 
not been cleaned since they were built, Topczewski said. Before the 
district's deep tunnel storage system became available in the past 13 years, 
it was not possible to shut down most sewers in the metropolitan area for a 
cleaning.

Thirty recreational fields in Milwaukee County were closed recently after it 
was learned that tons of tainted fertilizer had been applied to soccer, 
football and baseball fields and a par-3 golf course. The closings affected 
parts of five Milwaukee County parks and 25 Milwaukee Public Schools' 
recreational areas.

Fertilizer used at the county parks contained as much as 85 parts per 
million of PCBs. The fertilizer given to MPS contained about 2.2 parts per 
million of PCBs, below the federal standard for sewage-sludge fertilizers.

The Milwaukee Health Department has said that anyone who played at those 
recreational areas before the closings does not face a health risk. Each 
site was fenced off with warning signs as a precaution and to prevent 
unnecessary exposure to PCBs, the department said.

The sewerage district Thursday announced that it was posting signs warning 
of tainted fertilizer that might have been used at a flood management basin 
it is building on the Milwaukee County Grounds east of Swan Blvd. in 
Wauwatosa. The signs are a precaution because the fertilizer was delivered 
there June 21, just a few days after PCBs started showing up in 
sewage-sludge fertilizer produced at Jones Island.

Officials from MMSD, Milwaukee County and MPS are scheduled to meet this 
afternoon with representatives of federal and state environmental agencies 
to discuss tests of soil samples collected at about one dozen of the 
recreational areas.

Fields with soils containing less than 1 part per million of PCBs might be 
reopened to the public soon, officials have said.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=638831