Sludge Watch ==> Milwaukee continues to stuggle with PCB contamination into Milorganite

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

While the Milwaukee Municipal Sewerage District brags that they can sell 
their dried sewage sludge as "Milorganite", the Milwaukee auditors found 
that turning Milwaukee's sewage sludge into this 'fertilizer' is the most 
expensive disposal method on their list of possible management venues.

Imagine just how much more "Milorganite" is going to cost the taxpayers of 
Milwaukee as the lawsuits start and the clean up gets underway.

Meanwhile, the lawyers at Milorganite are lobbying the Canadian government 
to relax the Fertilizer Act to give sludge fertilizers easier passage into 
this country.   With the massive contamination of Milwaukee sewers with PCBs 
and the closure of countless parks and school fields with contaminated 
Milorganite, you'd think that Milorganite people would acknowledge the 
danger posed by their sludge 'product' rather than trying to strip away 
regulations that protect the public.

The PCB contents in the land spread Milorganite material went undetected 
until after spreading. Who know what other toxins continue to be found in 
the sewerage that goes into Milorganite?

In the public interest, and in the name of taxpayer liability, isn't it time 
to close down Milorganite?

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


http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=658067

MMSD may require cities to test pipes for PCBs
Contaminant threatens fertilizer operation
By DON BEHM
dbehm at journalsentinel.com
Posted: Sept. 5, 2007


To protect public health and a late-1980s investment of more than $200 
million in public funds to upgrade its Milorganite fertilizer production 
plant, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District might require itself and 
each of the 28 communities it serves to test sewers in older industrial or 
commercial areas for possible PCB contamination before the communities clean 
the pipes.

Sewers in residential-only neighborhoods or sewers built after 1980 - a year 
after use of PCBs was banned in the United States - would be exempted from 
the testing requirements of an emergency sewer cleaning rule to be 
considered this month by the district's policy-setting commission, officials 
said.

The rule, if approved, would be imposed for 120 days to allow time for the 
district to hold a public hearing on a permanent mandate and prepare 
guidelines for cleaning sewers in industrial areas, MMSD Executive Director 
Kevin Shafer said. The rule would apply to the district's 300 miles of large 
pipes, called interceptors, which collect sewage from the communities. It is 
not known what percentage of the 3,000 miles of municipal sewers would be 
covered by the regulation.

Milwaukee and most of the communities already have suspended sewer cleaning 
in industrial areas in response to the proposed rule, officials said.

Sewer cleaning crews in Milwaukee earlier this summer likely dislodged 
sediment contaminated with PCBs from the bottom of two sewers, and that was 
probably the source of the chemicals that subsequently contaminated sewage 
sludge at Jones Island, a preliminary investigation found.

Sludge removed from the Jones Island treatment plant is dried to produce a 
variety of fertilizer products, including Milorganite. No Milorganite stocks 
were contaminated, however, because production of the brand-name fertilizer 
had been suspended in early June because nitrogen levels in the sludge were 
too low.

Dried sludge fertilizer that did not meet Milorganite specifications and was 
tainted with the chemicals was spread this summer on 30 public recreational 
areas. The district must clean up three Milwaukee Public Schools' sites by 
removing the top several inches of soil. The work could begin Monday or 
Tuesday.

Sewage sludge produced daily at Jones Island continues to be contaminated 
with excessive concentrations of PCBs, preventing MMSD from resuming 
fertilizer production. More than 1,600 tons of the dried sludge made since 
late June is tainted with so much of the chemicals - more than 50 parts per 
million of PCBs - that it will have to be disposed of at a special 
toxic-waste landfill near Detroit.

The district expects to begin trucking the sludge to Michigan beginning 
Sunday or Monday.

The ongoing PCBs problem will cost district taxpayers more than $1.25 
million before it is resolved this fall.

"We need to minimize the risk of this occurring in the future," Shafer said 
in explaining the need for the emergency rule.

Banned in the U.S.
Use of PCBs in the U.S. was banned in 1979. The compounds had been used as 
insulators in electrical equipment and mixed in lubricants, adhesives, inks, 
carbonless copy paper, asphalt and other products.

Mike Pertmer, West Allis director of public works, said that his city's 
sewers do not pose much of a chemical risk to MMSD because they have been 
cleaned regularly since the early 1980s.

"We clean our sanitary sewers every 12 to 16 months," Pertmer said. 
"Whatever might have been in the sewers 20 years ago or longer would have 
been removed long ago."

West Allis also videotapes its sewers at least once every decade and would 
know if sediment or other debris had accumulated in any pipe, he said.

Wauwatosa has a two-year cycle for cleaning all sewers and likely is not a 
risk to MMSD, city engineer Bill Wehrley said.

Even so, Wauwatosa and West Allis plan to comply with the rule, the 
officials said. Both have delayed cleaning sewers in industrial 
neighborhoods for now.

The two cities also are preparing maps required by the rule to show the 
location of pre-1980s industries that might have used equipment or products 
containing PCBs, as well as businesses that might have recycled chemical 
waste or equipment contaminated with PCBs in recent years.

Milwaukee, too, is at work on such a map, city engineer Jeff Polenske said. 
There is no estimate at this time of the number of miles of city sewers in 
which testing will be required before cleaning, he said.

Milwaukee and MMSD lag behind the other municipalities in cleaning their 
sewers, however. Before the district's deep tunnel wastewater storage system 
was built, it was not possible to shut down most of the city's combined 
sewers or the district's regional collector sewers for cleaning, officials 
have said.

Attempts to clean out two neglected, aging sewers this summer unwittingly 
released a cascade of PCBs that continue to cause problems at Jones Island.

One is a Milwaukee combined sewer along N. 31st St., between W. Auer Ave. 
and W. Townsend St. The other is a large MMSD interceptor sewer that runs 
along W. Hampton Ave. to the Milwaukee River and down Humboldt Blvd.

Crews were cleaning both sewers in mid-June, and the concentration of PCBs 
in sewage sludge on Jones Island increased to unhealthful levels within 
days.

Cleaning of those two sewers has been suspended indefinitely.