Sludge Watch ==> Calif Sen. Boxer wants concerns over safety of biosolids disposal addressed

[Maureen Reilly]

Sen. Boxer wants concerns over safety of waste disposal addressed
By Cynthia Overweg, Ventura County Star
Correspondent
Thursday, March 13, 2008

A letter written by California Sen. Barbara Boxer to the administrator of 
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has some officials in Ventura 
County concerned about possible new, costly federal regulations on the 
disposal of biosolids.

Camarillo Mayor Charlotte Craven is in Washington, D.C., this week to meet 
with legislators as a representative of the Ventura County Regional 
Sanitation District, the city of Camarillo and the California Association of 
Sanitation Agencies. She and others are concerned about possible Clean Water 
Act changes that could affect local disposal of biosolids, the treated 
sewage waste that can end up as landscaping or agricultural fertilizer.

Officials on Boxer's environmental committee staff said Boxer is not yet 
calling for a revision of the Clean Water Act, but wants to be certain that 
public health issues surrounding the use of biosolids are fully addressed. 
She is asking the EPA to further explain contaminant issues, according to 
her staff.

Craven is attending a national conference on clean water issues and said she 
will ask for a meeting with Boxer, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on 
Environment and Public Works.

"We're not complaining about the Clean Water Act — it's done a great deal of 
good for our country — but if changes are made, the cost of paying for them 
has got to be spread," said Craven.

Boxer's inquiries to the EPA prompted local and regional water treatment 
facilities — members of the California Association of Sanitation Agencies — 
to send its own letter to Boxer suggesting she consider the benefits of 
properly managed biosolids before changes are made to the Clean Water Act.

Last month, Craven organized a meeting in Camarillo to discuss the issue of 
biosolids with Adolfo Bailon, one of the senator's field representatives. 
Craven also invited local officials and sanitation district managers, 
representing nearly every city in the county.

"We had 25 people in the room. We wanted to send the message that we need to 
be collaborators if she's going to revisit the Clean Water Act," said 
Craven, who added that in the past 15 years Camarillo has spent $36 million 
upgrading its water treatment facility. Craven said the 
cost-to-benefit-ratio has to make sense for local agencies.

Trish Holden, an environmental microbiologist at UC Santa Barbara, said 
contaminants in the environment, whether in biosolids or water, are a threat 
to public health.

"We have antibiotics all over the place, and pharmaceuticals are not 
effectively removed in wastewater treatment — this is a huge health issue 
and it hasn't been studied enough," said Holden.

She said the public does not understand the enormity of the issue or its own 
culpability.

"We flush drugs, medications and harsh chemicals down the drain and toilet 
every day — there's only so much a wastewater treatment facility can handle 
— we're all in this together," Holden said.

Waste is hard to dispose

The appropriate disposition of biosolids is an issue of growing significance 
because cities are running out of options on how to dispose of it, and must 
find alternative ways that make sense economically and scientifically, said 
Thousand Oaks City Councilman Dennis Gillette, a Ventura County Regional 
Sanitation District board member.

He said much of the county's sludge is hauled to a landfill in Kern County, 
but that option may not be available much longer because Kern County voters 
have limited what can be dumped and want to stop accepting the waste.

Last year, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors approved the treatment 
and disposal of local biosolids at the Toland Road Landfill near Santa 
Paula, where the treated sludge is applied to the ground as cover. But the 
operation is a scaled-down version of what was originally proposed, and 
trucking the sludge is still necessary.

"No one will rest on their laurels and proclaim it's 100 percent safe in 
every direction, but what we're saying is the current system we have will 
take biosolids and purify them to a point that these other pathogens and 
contaminants simply can't survive," said Gillette.

Biosolids in agriculture

But others aren't so sure. It's the mere possibility of potential 
disease-causing pathogens in biosolids that keeps local farmers from going 
anywhere near it.

"All the studies I've seen show that biosolids have metals in it and 
sometimes carry bacteria that aren't completely killed off," said Earl 
McPhail, Ventura County agricultural commissioner.

"The EPA says you can use it on some crops like cotton or alfalfa, but I 
don't foresee a time when biosolids could be used on edible crops as long as 
people are concerned about food safety," McPhail said. "I wouldn't use the 
stuff on my lawn, either."

The future of biosolids is a debate that may gain momentum as what's called 
"emerging contaminants" become more understood, said Dana Kolpin, project 
chief for the U.S. Geological Survey, an arm of the U.S. Department of the 
Interior.

In a recent study of land-applied biosolids, Kolpin said that earthworms — 
from a soybean field in the Midwest where biosolids were used — were 
contaminated with pharmaceuticals and toxic chemicals from common household 
cleaning products.

"We know contaminants were in the waste being applied. We know the worms 
were contaminated — the research needs to continue to see what this means to 
the worms, and what it means for a potential to go higher up the food 
chain," said Kolpin.

He said that while the use of biosolids can be beneficial because of the 
nutrients they provide to soil, there is also a lot of catch-up research 
work that needs to be done.

"These compounds degrade into other new compounds that can end up in 
reclaimed water and biosolids," said Kolpin.

Striking the right balance between protecting human health and the 
environment with the potential cost of added regulation is the central 
concern of all local sanitation agencies, said John Correa, general manager 
of the Ojai Valley Sanitation District.

"There's a shampoo that's used to kill lice and the active ingredient is one 
of those things that doesn't come out of the water — it's a proven toxic 
chemical that can't be removed in a treatment plant," Correa said.

The only way to keep such products out of the environment, Correa said, is 
to stop using them. "We need to be doing everything we can to get them 
outlawed."

In 1995, he said, his water district got an $18 million, 20-year state loan 
to upgrade its treatment plant. "If you give me a new mandate, who will pay 
for it?" he asked.

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/mar/13/change-to-sewage-rules-may-be-costly/