Sludge Watch ==> New York State Farmer Discontinues use of N-Viro Sludge Product

[Maureen Reilly]

Bergen Farms to discontinue use of sludge product
By Cara Hoffman
Special to The Journal, Ithaca, New York


In a move that has pleased Mecklenburg residents, Bergen Farms has announced 
that it will stop spreading an agricultural liming agent known as 
Earthblends N-Viro Soil, which is made from chemically treated human and 
municipal waste, on its Perry City fields.

In January, a group of residents called upon the Bergens, who operate a 
2,200-head dairy farm, to stop using the product.


The Bergens used Earthblends on their fields in Odessa for 10 years. In 
October 2007 they purchased land in the Town of Hector where they applied 
600 tons of the treated sludge.

Skip Bergen said after an informational meeting with residents, he and his 
brothers thought it over and decided to stop using the product. They met 
with their N-Viro salesman, who brought them the results of tests conducted 
in July and September. He said they were reassured that the tests found no 
PCBs.
Bergen said they feel confident the product is safe and point out that they 
are relying on regulating processes that have made its use legal. Jim Bergen 
said his concern about safety is like anyone else's.

“It's our neighborhood, too,” he said.

Reiterating that he and his brothers would never use a product they felt 
would harm people, he said that they are discontinuing out of respect for 
their neighbors.

“There are other options when it comes to liming agents,” Bergen said. 
“We're going to use them.”

Harley Campbell, who had requested the Bergens stop using N-Viro, said he 
was thrilled to hear about their decision.

“It was very gracious of them to accommodate their neighbor's wishes,” 
Campbell said, “and I hope they will never use it again.”


Debate rages on

Despite what residents are calling good news, the debate about the safety of 
N-Viro has opened up further discussion on what exactly the standards of 
regulation are for agricultural application and who is responsible for 
compliance.

Jeffrey LeBlanc, president of Earthblends N-Viro Soils — part of a group of 
companies known as We Care Holdings in Jordan, N.Y. — said the company 
itself heavily regulates the product. Earthblends serves 1,100 farmers and 
delivers 70,000 tons of the sludge product throughout New York state.

LeBlanc said the product is regulated every step of the way, beginning with 
the wastewater treatment process, where solids are separated and organics 
are broken down into bio-solids and wastewater sludge.

N-Viro is made from a bio-solid, meaning that it meets federal and state 
requirements to be beneficially reused, LeBlanc said. LeBlanc said his 
company takes daily and weekly composite samples of Earthblends, which are 
tested for heavy metals and PCBs by the independent lab Certified 
Environmental Services Inc. in Syracuse.

“We are far below any regulatory limit,” LeBlanc said. “We test for organic 
chemicals, and our metals are lower than the background metals that already 
exist in soils.”

LeBlanc also said that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards do not 
apply to his product, which is considered a type 1 bio-solid blended with 
lime and wood ash.

N-Viro's makers are required to comply with state Department of 
Environmental Conservation regulations. Stephanie Harrington of the DEC in 
Syracuse said an operation the size of N-Viro is required to test regularly 
for 116 pollutants, including heavy metals, volatile organic compounds 
including PCBs, and pesticides.

LeBlanc explained that N-Viro is much safer than the liquefied manure, or 
“slurry” that concentrated animal feeding operations use regularly because 
slurry creates problems with runoff and groundwater contamination and has 
higher rates of heavy metals, nitrogen and phosphorus.

N-Viro, he said, an organic and heavily regulated product, is part of the 
solution.

“The technology and science have improved tremendously,” LeBlanc said. “It 
all comes down to how the materials are applied.”

He said generally four to six tons of N-Viro are applied about two times a 
year. “It's really a dusting.”

Murray McBride, director of Cornell University's Waste Management Institute, 
said being within a regulatory limit may not matter because for many 
constituents there are no regulatory limits. EPA requirements for land 
application of sludge products, he said, revolve around toxic metals and 
pathogens. They do not include toxic chemicals. New York state DEC 
regulations, he said, are stricter than the federal Environmental Protection 
Agency standards for allowed toxins in sludge, but they are incomplete.

“There are several thousand known chemicals in sludge products,” McBride 
said. “We do not know which chemicals are likely to be a problem. Dioxins 
are not on the EPA or DEC lists even though they are known to be harmful.”

McBride agrees with LeBlanc that application rates are a big issue, 
particularly for feed crops, because toxins can bio-accumulate in the bodies 
of animals.

Mecklenburg resident Stefan Senders is in a group of residents concerned 
that being within regulation has little bearing on health and safety. He 
said he believes application rates are only part of the problem.

“We have been told that the material is safe,” Senders said. “But if you 
look at history, cigarettes, DDT, lead were all considered safe and even 
beneficial. But none of these things were really safe.”

Senders says the real problem is the concentrated animal feeding operations 
themselves.

“It's obvious these farms are too large,” he said. “And the problem is being 
addressed in a piecemeal fashion, but the system itself is toxic.”

“It clearly isn't sustainable,” McBride said. “If you keep applying it year 
after year, you will increase the metal and chemical content of the soil, 
and agricultural soil isn't a disposable product. Soils are not being 
manufactured. If we contaminate them we have to live with that. These are 
the same soils we have to grow our food on 1,000 years from now. This is 
going to come back to haunt us.”



http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080205/NEWS01/802050309/1002/NEWS01