Sludge Watch ==> Ontario -Double Standards in Biosolids Spills - no charges laid

[Maureen Reilly]

Cover Story
Better Farming
London Ontario Canada


October 2007 Issue


  The Scugog Township Incident
IS THERE A DOUBLE STANDARD WHEN IT COMES TO INVESTIGATING BIOSOLIDS SPILLS?


When biosolids gushed out of a punctured bladder in Durham Region in late 
2006, no charges were laid, even though the cleanup wasn’t done in a timely 
manner and the company concerned had previous convictions.

by DON STONEMAN


On Friday, Oct. 13, 2006, a heavy rainstorm forced biosolids applicator 
Terratec Environmental Ltd. to stop spreading on a farm on the 11th 
Concession of Scugog Township. The applicator left a synthetic impermeable 
bladder containing 20,000 gallons of liquid, concentrated human waste on the 
application site for the weekend unattended.
According to Durham Regional police, on late Saturday night or early Sunday 
morning, vandals cut a large slit in the bag, releasing its contents onto a 
nearby field and drainage ditch. A knife was found nearby.

No charges have been laid a year later, even though ministry officials 
determined from the outset that the response to the spill had not been 
conducted in a timely manner. Notes Gordon Miller, Ontario’s environmental 
commissioner: “The Ministry of the Environment (MOE) isn’t responding to 
spills like it formerly did.”

John Fitzgibbon, a professor at the University of Guelph and chair of the 
Ontario Farm Environmental Coalition (OFEC), which sets an agenda for the 
farm community to deal with environmental matters, says farmers don’t get 
nearly as much leeway as big companies or municipalities with sewage spills 
and bypasses. “Whether there was vandalism or not, the spill should have 
been dealt with as quickly as possible,” he says.
As it turns out, the Durham spill had been observed and reported 24 hours 
earlier, but no actions were taken to begin a cleanup. Jim Renahan, manager 
of the MOE’s Spills Action Centre (SAC), confirms that the centre received 
two calls about the spill on the Sunday morning and dispatched a worker from 
the local municipality to investigate. Renahan says that this is normal 
practice in off-business hours when an on-call environment ministry officer 
may be several hours’ drive away.

“We routinely contact municipal agencies for a preliminary field response. 
This provides an authoritative field assessment at the earliest 
opportunity,” Renahan told Better Farming.

This protocol, he says, “allows municipalities to exercise their right to 
respond under Section 100 of the Environmental Protection Act and greatly 
improves the information upon which SAC decides for or against the 
ministry’s own field response, particularly in the case of third party 
reports of spills.”

In the case of the spill in Scugog Township, the original reporter of the 
incident had a more than average knowledge and concern about what 
constituted a spill. Bob Campsall was enjoying his Sunday morning coffee on 
Oct. 15 last year when a local resident called to tell him about the spill.

Campsall farms in Durham Region and is licensed by the province as an 
applicator and broker in biosolids. He works for Ontario Disposal Limited 
(ODL), a locally-based and privately-owned company which has been spreading 
biosolids for the Region of Durham for nearly 30 years. Campsall says that 
many local residents are unaware that Terratec took over spreading Durham’s 
sewage sludge contract at the end of 2005.

Campsall’s personal interest got him into his truck on that Sunday morning 
in October to drive 20 minutes to the farm site east of the village of 
Greenbank. It was “due diligence” that made him pick up his cell phone and 
call the Spills Action Centre. “If I knew there was a spill and it could 
have gone to someone’s well, there is a chance that the director could 
revoke my license.”

Nearly a year later, the case remains unsolved.

“A success in Ontario”
A lot of questions remain about biosolids spreading and about ambiguities in 
the regulations governing it.

The rules about biosolids spreading haven’t changed since 1996, but the 
onset of nutrient management regulations in 2002 has made the situation more 
complex.

Biosolids, a polite term for sewage sludge that has been processed to reduce 
pathogens, are left after wastewater is treated at a water pollution control 
plant. Durham Region estimates that the average household produces 
approximately 1.2 cubic metres of biosolids per year.

Biosolids contain high levels of nutrients and are spread on farm fields as 
a fertilizer. The MOE regulates the spreading with the blessing of the 
Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA). Agriculture 
Minister Leona Dombrowsky describes the use of biosolids in agriculture as 
“a success in Ontario.” Biosolids provide cheap fertilizer for growing 
crops.

The Ontario Clean Water Agency, which manages many municipal sewage 
treatment plants, says that spreading biosolids on farmland extends landfill 
site life.

Land application is regulated under Regulation 347 of the Environmental 
Protection Act and in some cases under Regulation 267/03 under the Nutrient 
Management Act of 2002. OMAFRA and the MOE cite environmental quality, food 
safety, and human health issues as concerns. In addition, the MOE must 
approve each farm site receiving sewage biosolids.

Application is forbidden during heavy rains to prevent runoff, according to 
Keith Jamieson, agricultural environmental officer with the MOE, based in 
Ajax.
Bob Campsall describes the spill he saw in the field on Oct. 15 as about 80 
feet long and 30 feet wide. Initially, he didn’t think the spill was 
serious. He called the SAC in Toronto. (The phone number is pasted to the 
dashboard of his pickup truck. “I live this stuff,” Campsall says.)

After hanging up and driving to the next rural road intersection, he grew 
more concerned. “I saw cattails bent over” in the ditch, Campsall told 
Better Farming last November. When he got out of the truck to look closer, 
“there was sludge down that ditch as far as I could see.”

The ditch leads to a wetland, the source of a tributary of the Nonquon 
River, which flows into Lake Scugog, a popular fishing spot and part of the 
Trent Canal system.

Campsall called the SAC again to say that the spill was worse than he had 
first thought.
Campsall says that it was unfortunate that the cleanup didn’t begin Sunday. 
Tuesday’s weather forecast called for heavy rains again.

A report by consulting engineering firm Golder Associates Ltd, ordered by 
the local director of the MOE and paid for by Terratec, estimated that 80 
cubic metres of biosolids, or 16,000 gallons, escaped. The report said that 
half of the biosolids were pooled around the bag and half escaped into the 
drainage ditch.

Excavators removed more than 1,000 cubic metres of material, including 
topsoil, biosolids and the bed of the ditch and spread it in an adjacent 
field, which the MOE also licensed. Water in the ditch travels about 1.4 
kilometres until it enters “an unnamed tributary” of the Nonquon River. The 
Nonquon flows into Lake Scugog, part of the Trent Canal system. The 
consultant’s report says that most, if not all of the biosolids were removed 
in the cleanup. The MOE says that its officers inspecting the site on Oct. 
16 found that no biosolids reached the Nonquon River.

Approved by the ministry
Were liquid biosolids allowed to be stored on an application site? The 
Nutrient Management Act says no.

But there is a caveat. Michael Payne, biosolids specialist for OMAFRA, 
points out that the Act only applies to farms phased in under the Nutrient 
Management Act because they have livestock producing more than 300 nutrients 
of manure or are planning to expand.

The owner of the farm where the biosolids were being applied and were 
spilled (who wishes to remain anonymous) confirms that his operation hasn’t 
been phased in. He is writing a nutrient management strategy this year. He 
says that, when the spill occurred, he was treated well by Terratec 
Environmental. The vice-president came out to supervise the clean up, he 
says.

Terratec Environmental holds a waste management system certificate of 
approval issued by the ministry.

The certificate allows Terratec to spread biosolids on agricultural lands 
that are approved as organic soil conditioning sites. Some material was cast 
into the field beside the ditch. Campsall says that when ODL had the 
contract to spread biosolids n Durham, it couldn’t do that. The combination 
of spilled biosolids and soil from the ditch “is a mixed waste. In the past 
it would be reclaimed, removed and taken to a licensed transfer” and later 
to a landfill site. But Terratec, he says, “just puts it back into the 
field. I’m surprised that they can do that now.”

Better Farming was unable to get a spokesperson from the MOE to respond. 
Instead,  the communications department collected responses from the office 
in Ajax, noting that the way that spilled material is disposed of “depends 
on the type of waste. Spilled material is handled in a number of different 
fashions to make sure that the environment is protected and our legislation 
is complied with.”

In late 2005, news reports said that Durham Region had awarded a five-year 
contract for disposing of biosolids to Terratec Environmental for $1.83 
million annually. Campsall told Better Farming that ODL didn’t bid for the 
biosolids-spreading contract because the nutrient management spreading 
requirements made him uncomfortable. He couldn’t see how it would be 
possible for farmers to determine accurately the amount of nutrients being 
put on their farms when they were using biosolids as part of their 
fertilizer plan. In Campsall’s experience, analyses of biosolids content 
were out of date. On one occasion, a farmer who asked for the nutritive 
value of biosolids spread on his farm got something from a water pollution 
plant in another part of the province. Campsall says that biosolids from one 
Durham plant were high in phosphorus. Another plant’s biosolids were high in 
nitrogen. “We saw strip fertilizing. You could tell by the crop’s growth 
where the material came from.”

Campsall works with the N-MAN nutrient management software developed by the 
Ontario agriculture ministry to plan nutrient applications.

He believes that “the diligence that we showed in the past is not there.”

Company did the right things
Better Farming described circumstances surrounding the Scugog spill to 
Environmental Commissioner Gordon Miller. He questions whether “the person 
responding from the municipality (is) competent to assess the environmental 
risk,” adding that “it becomes a judgment call that someone has to make.”

Miller notes that it is normal for a company to hire a consultant to see 
whether a cleanup was handled properly. A number of professionals, including 
biologists and hydrogeologists, are required to determine the extent of the 
damage. Miller says that the company appears to have done all of the right 
things in contacting landowners in the area who might be affected, as well 
as the local conservation authority.

An MOE document published last spring, entitled “A Guide to Reporting Spills 
and Discharges,” says spills are reported so that polluters pay to clean up 
problems rather than public tax dollars having to pay for them. Terratec 
“are the big guys,” Miller says.

Azurix, another waste disposal company, took over Terratec in 2000. Later, 
Azurix was absorbed by American Water, which in turn was purchased by 
Germany-based RWE in 2003. American Water recently announced that it was 
being divested and will be headquartered in New Jersey. It brags that it 
treats water in 19 states as well as Canada.

Terratec’s website states that the company has 25 years of experience in 
biosolids management in Ontario, services more than 18 wastewater treatment 
plants and storage facilities, and applies over 700,000 cubic metres of 
liquid and 50,000 tonnes of solid biosolids material yearly. The website 
further cites utilization of more than 15,000 acres each year, with a land 
reserve of over 75,000 acres.

In 2004, Terratec was fined $26,000 plus a 25 per cent victim surcharge 
($7,500) for spreading partially-digested, smelly vegetable waste on farm 
fields near Wellandport and failing to remove it.

In 2005, a justice of the peace in Hamilton fined the company $2,000 for 
failing to have a tanker and trailer marked with the appropriate certificate 
of approval number and failing to carry a copy of the certificate in the 
vehicle, as required.

In spite of that record, the MOE’s investigations branch never came onto the 
scene of the Scugog Township spill. The MOE’s Jamieson explained to Better 
Farming that, since the spill was an act of vandalism and not a mistake of 
the applicator, the issue was left to the local police.

In late July, Durham Regional Police Sgt. Paul McCurbin said that there were 
no witnesses to the membrane slashing and no leads to follow. “The matter is 
closed, pending further investigation,” he told Better Farming. If someone 
comes forward, police could re-open the investigation.

“I can’t believe that a police investigation could prevent the MOE from 
investigating,” Campsall says. When he saw that the bag leaked, he suspected 
that expanding gases caused the bladder to burst. It was a warm weekend, he 
says. He can’t imagine anyone cutting a hole in a bladder containing 20,000 
gallons of concentrated liquid human waste and not being caught in the flow. 
Terratec vice-president Phil Sidhwa insists otherwise.
“That bag was sliced and a knife was found nearby. Whatever these guys did, 
they did it well.”

Jamieson says that the applicator has made some changes to its procedures as 
a result of the incident and the report. The most important change is that 
flexible bags are always emptied before an application site is left for the 
night.

Campsall says that ODL was not perfect when it spread biosolids in Durham. 
“We had little (spills). Nothing large. We’ve always been told that six 
gallons constitutes a spill,” he says.

He recalls an instance when “a few dozen gallons” spilled over the top of a 
holding tank and onto a roadside.

The ODL crew scooped up the spilled material and the soil it contaminated 
into pails and put them into the field. Campsall says that he reported the 
spill and the investigating officer ordered the material removed from the 
field and sent to a special site for treatment and landfill. So why was the 
material at the spill in Scugog simply scooped up and put into the trees 
along the roadside?

Bags pumped empty
In July, Jamieson said that “the site is pretty well recovered” and that 
Terratec “has changed some of its practices so that the same thing can’t 
happen again.” Sidhwa says that Terratec now makes certain that bladders are 
pumped dry before an application site is left at the end of a work day. If a 
bag remains, “we pump it empty.”

Sidhwa is an industry stakeholder on the provincial Biosolids Utilization 
Committee, which reviews guidelines for applying biosolids and other wastes 
to agricultural lands.
There were no adverse impacts to the environment, according to the report 
submitted by consulting engineering firm Golder. Better Farming obtained a 
copy of the report by means of a Freedom of Information request. Orders for 
the cleanup came from the MOE’s Provincial officer Jamieson and subsequently 
Terratec appealed and the local director overruled the appeal.

The contents of both orders, also obtained by Better Farming, reveal that 
Terratec’s lawyers tried to have the word “spill” replaced in reports with 
the word “incident.” The term “spill” remains in the official reports with 
the Ministry.

Better Farming asked the ministry’s communications branch what the 
difference is. The ministry did not define an “incident” but replied that 
“under our legislation, there is a distinction between a spill and an 
incident…Parties responsible for a spill are required to notify the ministry 
and take remedial action to address the spill.”

Better Farming also asked about the question of storage. It’s not abnormal 
for quantities of biosolids to be left temporarily on site, the MOE says. 
Terratec’s Certificate of Approval requires biosolids to be spread within 
five calendar days after they are delivered. One other condition of the 
certificate is that the biosolids stored must be “26 per cent solids 
concentration by weight or higher” and they are supposed to be stored on 
land with a grade not exceeding three per cent.

Payne, OMAFRA’s biosolids specialist, says “the bladders are only used for 
liquid. They aren’t used for dewatered (biosolids) at all.” He confirms that 
26 per cent dry matter biosolids is a dewatered material.

The ministry would not furnish information about the analyses of biosolids 
or the metal content, but insists levels were not excessive.

The spilled material was recovered and spread under ministry supervision, 
either on the farm where it was intended or on the farm where it ended up, 
which was also licensed as a biosolids receiver.

The ministry did take issue with the applicator’s timeliness in dealing with 
the spill.
Terratec’s response to the spill “was not considered to have been conducted 
in a timely manner and the matter was referred to the ministry’s 
investigations and enforcement branch (IEB). The IEB decided a formal 
investigation was not warranted because the spill was deemed to be an act of 
vandalism and was therefore being investigated by the police.”

The consultants’ report ordered by the MOE director said that “we understand 
that the contents of this report are not intended for, nor will be used in, 
any investigation or prosecution that may arise in connection with the 
matter described herein.”

But the MOE says that “the ministry would not typically agree to this 
statement. If this situation was investigated by the IEB, all reports, 
particularly those submitted in response to an order, could be used in an 
investigation.”

According to Durham’s website, the region’s Biosolids Management Program 
applies between 1,000 and 5,000 dry tonnes of biosolids annually, depending 
on weather conditions and land availability. The website says that 
approximately 120,000 dry tonnes of treated sewage sludge are applied to 
agricultural land in Ontario, with about 80 per cent of Ontario 
municipalities participating in some form of this practice.

The MOE has a heavy emphasis on reporting spills and also on the cleanup. In 
July 2007, Maple Leaf Foods was fined $20,000 for failing to notify the MOE 
that 700 kilograms of a fish by-product had spilled from a truck two years 
earlier. A crew cleaned it up without notifying the MOE, which found out 
about the spill from a passing motorist.

Also in July of this year, National Challenge Systems Inc. was fined 
$100,000 for failing to provide financial assurances that are part of its 
license to transport and store specified organic, non-hazardous wastes. The 
charges were laid two years ago.

In the same month, a Quebec company was fined $25,000, plus a victim fine 
surcharge, after pleading guilty to a charge that it did not clean up a 
spill of diesel fuel that occurred following a tractor-trailer collision 
with a passenger vehicle.

OFEC’s Fitzgibbon cites the case of a Haldimand farmer who has been in court 
since 2000 because of what Fitzgibbon calls “a small stream” of brown 
material that may have come from his barn. The farmer was recently convicted 
on pollution charges and was scheduled to be sentenced in September.

Fitzgibbon has some experience managing a biosolids application on a family 
farm. He says he insists that all unspread materials must be removed at the 
end of the workday.
“A few extra clauses in the agreement go a long way towards making everybody 
happy.”
Farmers can set the terms and conditions above and beyond certificates of 
approval if someone wants to use their land to get rid of biosolids, 
Fitzgibbon asserts. “We’ve got to make sure that the people doing it manage 
their liabilities and don’t impose any on us.”
Fitzgibbon stresses that farmers around cities are going to see more and 
more use of biosolids. “They are legitimate as long as they are managed 
well.” If farmers aren’twilling to accept them, “that will place the cities 
in a much more difficult position.”

Fitzgibbon believes that “the municipalities have been getting a free ride 
in many areas. I understand that there is a huge cost involved in managing 
sewage treatment and pollution. We have to deal with these things equitably. 
We can’t give some people a free pass and tell others to jump through the 
hoop.” BF


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.betterfarming.com/2007/october/cover.html