Sludge Watch ==> WERF wants sludge risk assessment tool for every little town and village

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

This is a Request for Proposals (RFP) from the Water Environment Research 
Foundation. They are an arm of the wastewater industry in the United States.

They want to cobble together several proposals. First they want to develop a 
risk assessment tool that will allow for the risk assessment of sewage 
sludges at the local municipal level.  This has got to be a challenge.  Risk 
assessments are already very complicated technical documents that are built 
on assumptions that may or may not be accurate.  To find formulas that would 
apply to every kind of sludge, every kind of soil, every kind of contaminant 
that could be in the sludge and in the soil, under every possible crop and 
weather condition...well....it doesn't easily lend itself the requirements 
of local government.

Generally risks are  assessed are acceptable if the practice results in less 
than one death per million. (Human deaths...not animals, fish, pets, etc).  
However in the sludge industy, some practices are considered acceptable risk 
even with a death rate of one in 100,000.

The second half of the RFP is for a communication strategy...how to put this 
jive across to the public.

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

WERF Makes Funding Available for Research on Biosolids Pathogen Risk 
Assessment.
(ALEXANDRIA, VA)

The Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF) is now accepting proposals 
for research addressing biosolids pathogen risk assessment and the effective 
communication of results. WERF anticipates funding of approximately $250,000 
- $500,000 for the first year of research. Due to the scope of this 
challenge, estimates for the total cost, over a multi-year period, are 
estimated at up to $1 million. WERF wants this research to facilitate use of 
biosolids pathogens risk assessment methodologies for the purpose of making 
them generally applicable and available to potential users at the local, 
state, and national level. A complementary activity will be to ensure that 
the best risk communications science and practices are available to 
communicate the results. Proposals are due no later than November 16, 2007.

WERF has worked with its subscribers to identify and prioritize their top 
challenges and plans to establish a flexible and adaptive relationship with 
individual researchers and research teams. This RFP is different from some 
WERF RFPs in the past as it is not soliciting a single project for a set 
period of time for a set cost. Instead, this RFP identifies an overall goal 
and suggests some key milestones to focus the research efforts.

"Meeting regulatory requirements for land application practices may no 
longer be enough to ensure the continued beneficial use of biosolids. 
Because of the heightened public scrutiny that land-application projects 
often face, WERF feels it is important to refine the tools that will allow 
utilities, land appliers, regulators, and local public administrators to 
more readily assess the relative risks associated with pathogens in 
biosolids and effectively communicate the results," says Dan Woltering, 
Ph.D., Director of  Research at WERF.

The goal of this research program is to incorporate advancements in pathogen 
risk assessment and communications made over the past ten years into 
available methodologies. Demonstrations of method applicability, including 
the development and testing of a user-friendly interface that allows data to 
be readily input, are needed in order to put such a pathogen risk assessment 
approach into common practice. A complementary and equally important aspect 
is to bring forward and further develop the best risk communications science 
and practices that are relevant to this topic.

Researchers interested in submitting a proposal are encouraged to visit the 
WERF website at 
http://www.werf.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Funding/OpenRFPs/default.htm for 
more information and a complete RFP.