Sludge Watch ==> Al Rubin -threaten, harass, suppress data on behalf of waste industry?

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Here we have a letter from Dr Al Rubin praising Nursery Products open air 
sludge compost proposal.
Now that he is being paid by Nursery Products he has forgotten what he told 
me about how Nursery Products fails to compost sludge in keeping with the 
minimum requriements of the regulations on sludge.  He fails to mention that 
the last Nursery Products site in Adelanto...which was less than 1/10th of 
the size proposed for Hinkley, was court ordered shut by a judge because it 
was a risk to public health.

He shrills out that sludge is safe when the highest science organization in 
the USA, the National Academy of Science, writes that the health risks of 
sludge are unknown because the EPA failed to conduct risk assessment on the 
diseases from pathogens in sludge.
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=10426


He ignores the Cornell Waste Management report on health impacts on sludge 
victims including a hunded or so cases in Mohave AZ.
http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/sludge/incidents.htm

On a recent radio show Al Rubin actually said sewage sludge is safe to eat.
Al - You chow down on a bowl of Nursery Products sewage sludge.
That is something we'd all pay to watch.


Dr Rubin's history of bad behavior was written up in Time Magazine in 1999 - 
see the story below.
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http://www.desertdispatch.com/onset?db=desertdispatch&id=41&template=article.html

Letters to the Editor
February 20, 2007 - 3:01PM
While biosolids have long been an integral component to the recycling 
industry, most folks tend to think of recycling in terms of bottles, 
aluminum cans or newspapers. Biosolids, which are derived from human sewage, 
is a topic most would rather just flush and forget. But biosolid management 
is a necessity and biosolid recycling is the environmentally preferred 
alternative.

The challenges to biosolids recycling aren't a matter of safety or science; 
it's strictly a problem of perception. Disappointingly, much of the debate 
is based on emotions and feelings and not on science.

Biosolids begin at the wastewater treatment facility where 95 percent of the 
pathogens are removed leaving just nutrient-rich material that is an 
effective and beneficial organic fertilizer. In fact 60 percent of biosolids 
in California are directly applied to crops.

However, Nursery Products will add a margin of safety to this recycling 
activity by composting the biosolids. That means biosolids will be mixed 
with green material like wood chips and wood scraps from furniture 
manufacturers. During the composting process, the product heats up to 131 
degrees for a minimum of 15 days killing off the remaining 5 percent of 
pathogens and viruses that possibly survived the wastewater treatment 
process. This results in compost that is 100 percent safe. In fact, this is 
the same compost sold in your local Home Depot or Lowe's garden department.

Scientists have been studying biosolid recycling for decades and there is 
not one peer-reviewed study that shows evidence that this process poses any 
human health risk. Not one.

There are open-air biosolid recycling facilities in more than 4,000 other 
communities throughout the United States that have operated safely and 
successfully for decades. Many of these facilities have neighbors much 
closer than eight miles yet there is no evidence of any health impacts to 
these communities.

In fact, the open-air composting site in Austin, Texas, which has operated 
since 1989 is closer to downtown Austin than the Nursery Products site is to 
Hinkley. The Austin composting site is less than six miles from the 
University of Texas, Sixth Street, and even the State Capitol and Governor's 
Mansion downtown. Austin is one of the top tourist destinations in Texas and 
many of the Austin residents purchase the compost created at the site for 
their own gardening use. There is no evidence that any Austin residents or 
tourists have suffered any ill health effects and in fact the Longhorns 
football team won the college national championship in 2006 practicing and 
playing their home games within six miles of this biosolid composting site.

This project is safe and this process is safe and will have no impact on 
Hinkley. Anyone who claims that biosolid recycling poses public health risks 
is using scare tactics and not science.

Alan B. Rubin, Ph.D

Dr. Rubin is an environmental consultant for Nursery Products and was the 
Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Chief of the Biosolids 
Risk-Assessment Branch. During his 28-year tenure at EPA, Dr. Rubin appeared 
as a federal government expert witness to testify in support of the Part 503 
Standards that were developed to protect public health and the environment 
as they pertain to biosolids management.


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

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,992095,00.html?promoid=googlep

Environment

Monday, Sep. 27, 1999
By ARNOLD MANN/WASHINGTON

   Environmental Protection Agency chief CAROL BROWNER is in for an angry 
letter from some Congressmen this week.

At issue: "serious, perhaps even illegal" behavior on the part of EPA senior 
scientist ALAN RUBIN, author of the 503 Sludge Rule, which declared 
municipal wastes safe for spreading in forests and farmlands.

What Representative JOE KNOLLENBERG (R., Mich.), House science committee 
chair JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R., Wis.), Senator JAMES INHOFE (R., Okla.) and 
others want to know is, Has Rubin been engaging in "threatening and 
harassing" telephone calls and e-mails to the residences of anti-sludge 
activists Helaine Shields, Jane Beswick and others?

Did Rubin attempt to bribe a waste- treatment-company executive to get him 
to "refrain from raising concerns" about sludge transportation and stop 
insisting it be transported as hazardous waste?

Has Rubin been distributing "selected, preliminary" risk data that appeared 
to discredit sludge-toxicity findings by EPA scientist David Lewis? The 
agency has come under fire for harassing its scientists who question 
regulations.

Now the intimidation may have spread. "I must be on to something, or he 
wouldn't be coming at me like this," says California dairy farmer and 
anti-sludger Beswick, who got eight letters from Rubin, one accompanied by a 
note: "Jane: Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee!"

Rubin, contacted by TIME, denied all charges. He says he regularly sends 
communications to those who oppose EPA policy, not to harass or threaten but 
to inform.

--By Arnold Mann/Washington

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

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=10426

Read Full Report

Date: July 2, 2002
Contacts: Jennifer Burris, Media Relations Associate
Andrea Durham, Media Relations Assistant
(202) 334-2138; e-mail <news at nas.edu>

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sewage Sludge Standards Need New Scientific Basis

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's standards that 
govern using treated sewage sludge on soil are based on outdated science, 
says a new report from the National Academies' National Research Council. 
The agency should update its standards using improved methods for assessing 
health risks, and should further study whether treated sewage sludge causes 
health problems for workers who apply it to land and for residents who live 
nearby, added the committee that wrote the report. More rigorous enforcement 
of the standards is needed as well.

"There is a serious lack of health-related information about populations 
exposed to treated sewage sludge," said committee chair Thomas A. Burke, 
professor, department of health policy and management, Johns Hopkins 
University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore. "To ensure public 
health protection, EPA should investigate allegations of adverse health 
effects and update the science behind its chemical and pathogen standards."

Under a 1993 Clean Water Act rule designed to protect public health and the 
environment, sewage sludge can be applied to land if it is sufficiently 
treated to limit concentrations of certain chemicals and reduce 
disease-causing pathogens. Sewage sludge that meets these standards is 
referred to as biosolids. Depending on the extent of treatment, biosolids 
may be applied as a fertilizer where there is limited public exposure to it, 
such as farms and forests, or on sites with more public contact such as 
parks, golf courses, lawns, and home gardens. Since 1992, when a ban on 
ocean dumping was instituted, applying biosolids to land has reduced the 
amount of sewage sludge that would otherwise need to be buried in landfills 
or incinerated. About 5.6 million tons of sewage sludge are used or disposed 
of each year in the United States, and 60 percent of that is used for land 
application.

Methods for assessing the health risks posed by exposure to chemicals have 
evolved substantially since the 1993 biosolids rule was established. In 
addition, EPA used an unreliable 1988 survey to identify hazardous chemicals 
in sewage sludge when it set the standards, and other chemicals have since 
been found to be of potential concern. A new survey and revised risk 
assessments are needed, the committee said. The revised risk assessments 
also should reflect the potential for regional variations in climate, water 
flow, and biosolids characteristics, and should be designed to protect 
individuals against realistic maximum exposures.

The committee agreed with EPA's general approach for regulating pathogens, 
which requires the level of disease-causing microorganisms to be reduced 
through treatment of sewage sludge and restrictions on use of land 
immediately after biosolids are applied. However, the agency should use new 
pathogen-detection technology to ensure that treatments are reliable. 
Microbial risk assessments that include the possibility of secondary 
transmission of disease, such as through person-to-person contact or through 
food, air, or water, also should be developed. As is the case with 
chemicals, a new national survey of pathogens in sewage sludge should be 
carried out.

To assure the public that biosolids regulations are being followed, EPA 
should increase its efforts to ensure that companies producing biosolids 
meet the regulatory requirements to remove or neutralize chemicals and 
pathogens. EPA also needs to ensure that biosolids are applied in accordance 
with special management practices. In certain cases, biosolids can be 
applied with the understanding that the land cannot be used for a specified 
period to allow pathogens to fall below detectable levels. However, EPA has 
not been verifying if pathogens are dying off, whether the land is being 
used for agriculture or grazing, or whether public access is adequately 
restricted. Field data are needed in these cases, the committee said.

EPA also should conduct studies of the potential health risks, or lack 
thereof, to workers and residential populations exposed to biosolids. The 
report cites anecdotal reports linking biosolids to adverse health effects, 
ranging from mild allergic reactions to more severe chronic conditions, 
along with public concern about those reports. The committee also cited a 
lack of population studies on individuals exposed to biosolids, such as 
farmers and nearby residents. Studies on workers exposed to raw sewage are 
not an adequate substitute for studies of populations exposed to biosolids 
in the environment, the committee concluded. More funding and staff are 
needed to support EPA's regulation of biosolids. Some of these resources 
should go toward the needed research.

The study was sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The 
National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National 
Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. It is a 
private, nonprofit institution that provides science and technology advice 
under a congressional charter. A committee roster follows.

The report Biosolids Applied to Land: Advancing Standards and Practices is 
available on the Internet at http://www.nap.edu. Copies will be available 
for purchase later this summer from the National Academy Press; tel. (202) 
334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242. Reporters may obtain a pre-publication copy from 
the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed above).


NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
Division on Earth and Life Studies
Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology

Committee on Toxicants and Pathogens in Biosolids Applied to Land

Thomas A. Burke (chair)
Professor
Department of Health Policy and Management
Bloomberg School of Public Health
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore

Lawrence R. Curtis
Professor and Head
Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology
Oregon State University
Corvallis

Charles N. Haas
L.D. Betz Chair Professor
School of Environmental Science, Engineering, and Policy
Drexel University
Philadelphia

William E. Halperin
Professor and Chair
Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health
New Jersey Medical School
Newark

Ellen Z. Harrison
Director
Cornell Waste Management Institute
Center for the Environment
Cornell University
Ithaca

John B. Kaneene
Professor of Epidemiology, and
Director
Population Medicine Center
Michigan State University
East Lansing

Greg Kester
Wisconsin State Residuals Coordinator
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Bureau of Watershed Management
Madison

Stephen P. McGrath
Program Leader
Agriculture and Environment Division
Institute for Arable Crops Research Rothamsted
Harpenden, Herts
United Kingdom

Thomas E. McKone
Senior Scientist
Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Division of Environmental Health Sciences
School of Public Health
University of California
Berkeley

Ian L. Pepper
Professor
Department of Soil, Water, and Environmental Sciences
University of Arizona
Tucson

Suresh D. Pillai
Associate Professor
Poultry Science Department
Texas A&M University
College Station

Frederick G. Pohland*
Professor and Weidlein Chair of Environmental Engineering
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh

Robert S. Reimers
Professor
Department of Environmental Health Sciences
School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
Tulane University
New Orleans

Rosalind A. Schoof
Principal
Gradient Corp.
Mercer Island, Wash.

Donald L. Sparks
Distinguished Professor and Chair
Department of Plant and Soil Sciences
University of Delaware
Newark

Robert C. Spear
Professor
Division of Environmental Health Sciences
School of Public Health
University of California
Berkeley

RESEARCH COUNCIL STAFF

Susan Martel
Study Director

* Member, National Academy of Engineering