Sludge Watch ==> Judge voids Brunswick field care ordinance

[Steve Smith]

http://www.timesrecord.com/website/main.nsf/news.nsf/0/42864E161B26A16C052572ED006934F2?Opendocument

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Judge voids Brunswick field care ordinance
Rachel_Ganong at TimesRecord.Com
06/01/2007
BRUNSWICK — A Portland Superior Court judge has ruled state law trumps a 
local ordinance barring application of Class A biosolids in favor of 
practicing organic field care practices on municipal property.

Town Manager Donald Gerrish received the ruling from Superior Court 
Justice Robert F. Crowley on Thursday. In it, Crowley asserts the 
Brunswick Community Health and Land Care Ordinance preempts state 
regulations of solid waste facilities under the Maine Hazardous Waste, 
Septage and Solid Waste Management Act that prohibits stricter rules 
than those contained therein.

Crowley argues that because sludge is spread in such a way that it 
enters the environment, town lands on which sludge-derived products are 
spread become "solid waste facilities" as defined in M.R.S.A. section 
1303-C and are consequently subject to the act. Because the act allows 
local ordinances on solid waste facilities that are not stricter than 
its rules and because state law doesn't ban all application of sludge to 
land qualifying as a "solid waste facility" as does the ordinance, 
Crowley deemed the ordinance is expressly "preempted by 38 M.R.S.A. 
Section 1310-U and therefore unenforceable."

Gerrish did not know if the existing ordinance addresses how the town 
would separate the treated sewer sludge ban from a legal pesticide ban 
also contained in the ordinance.

The ruling in the town's favor allowed Gerrish to strike $8,000 from the 
proposed annual budget to pay for special fertilizers that would have 
been used instead of Class A biosolids if the ordinance was judged legal.

The Town Council voted in January to take the Katahdin Center for 
Education and Research to court to determine the legality of the land 
care ordinance, after residents petitioned for and won a November 
referendum that passed by a vote of 3,921 to 3,915.

The Katahdin Center for Education and Research filed a counter suit, but 
dropped it after both parties agreed to let a town-imposed moratorium on 
the ordinance expire on March 27 and to allow regular operation of 
chemically treated Coffin Pond, which was unintentionally restricted by 
the ordinance.

Proponents of the ordinance have yet to return calls seeking comment.