Sludge Watch ==> Kern County sludge - Overflowing Honeybucket floods Kern farms

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

More than half the sewage sludge land applied in Arizona comes from 
California.
Rivers of sludge head across state lines.

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



3/21/2008


Overflowing Honeybucket floods Kern farms
Honeybucket operators swear by the nutritional impact the sludge has made

Don Curlee
For the Capital Press

You expect a business operating as Honeybucket Farms to produce sweet 
results. But the 3,000-4,000-acre enterprise in remote western Kern County, 
Calif., has instead stirred up controvery and a sour reaction.

In the first place, "honeybucket" is the euphemistic moniker for the 
container that carried the family's nighttime excretory deposits to the 
two-holer out back the next morning. You might not remember, but your 
grandparents will. Give the operator of Honeybucket Farms credit for a sense 
of humor, or irony, or accuracy. Read on.

In the second place, the farm has served for four years or more as a 
depository for sewer sludge, the byproduct of sewage treatment plants in 
Orange and Los Angeles Counties, and a lesser amount from Santa Barbara 
County.

In the third place, the operational history of Honeybucket has led to the 
purchase of nearby property of comparable size by the City of Los Angeles, 
where it is conducting similar farm practices.

It isn't that the sludge renders the soil impotent. On the contrary, robust 
production of typical row and forage crops has been recorded from the outset 
where it is incorporated with native soil. Careful and restrictive control 
has avoided production of food crops on the land.

Honeybucket operators swear by the nutritional impact the truckloads of 
sludge have made on the land that has been considered marginally productive. 
For them, the outflow of millions of toilets and its subsequent treatment is 
producing rich agricultural results.

But the Kern County residents who are aware of the procedure can come up 
with dozens of objections and questions. Many just don't cotton to the idea 
of Kern County being the recipient of Los Angeles, Orange and Santa Barbara 
counties' sewer sludge.

The controversy has reached the board of supervisors and environmental and 
health authorities. Suits have been filed to shut off the flow of the 
material, and referendums have rejected the practice.

But still the sludge-filled trucks come over the mountain. One suit is 
before the Superior Court in neighboring Tulare County, and another 
regarding the outcome of a referendum is on appeal before the infamous Ninth 
District Court in San Francisco.

Experts for, and against, the projects have been active. If anybody is 
keeping track, arguments that endorse or condemn emptying the honeybucket on 
Kern County soil seem to offset one another.

The "not in my back yard" attitude is strongest. It's far more prevalent 
than authorized statements justifying or challenging the practice.

Many in this contingent feel that the three south coastal counties ought to 
identify their own back yards and dump there, but not in Kern County.

Research has been done to determine if the sludge might be injected into 
abandoned dry oil well shafts along the Los Angeles County shoreline. With 
pumping equipment removed and the wells capped off, the sludge can reside 
out of sight, out of mind.

In the meantime, Honeybucket's owners are said to be exploring property 
similarly remote to what they occupy in Kern County somewhere in Arizona.

However, that might be more of an expansion move than a response to the loud 
objections raised in Kern County.

Those snowbirds who have moved to Arizona might be surprised, one day, to 
find that behind the back fence of their upscale gated community, the 
sagebrush and cactus are thriving because they are being fed by an 
industrial-strength two-holer.

They might decide that some things are less desirable to shovel than snow.

http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=84&SubSectionID=777&ArticleID=40223&TM=37612.54