Sludge Watch ==> NS - There are good alternatives to eating sewage sludge

[Maureen Reilly]

http://www.thecoast.ca/Articles-i-2008-05-08-152137.113118-p19973.113118_Poop_scoop.html


May 08, 2008
Poop scoop
There are good alternatives to eating sewage sludge



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by Chris Benjamin, The Coast, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Last column I wrote about HRM's plan to sell our toxic crap to farmers, call 
it fertilizer and grow our food in it. The sludge from our harbour is a 
massive cocktail of mostly unidentified chemicals that pose deadly risks to 
farm animals and humans and huge financial risks to farmers.

I've heard better ideas, and this week I'm going to share some.

Maureen Reilly is full of better ideas about liquid waste. She has been 
researching the topic for 12 years. She expresses frustration that after a 
decade of fighting the application of sludge on farms, this bad idea keeps 
resurfacing like a stubborn patch of poo-encrusted thistle.

"It's one big old boys' club," she says of the sewage industry---both its 
private sector and government manifestations. "There are so few sewage 
people with so much money, because most people don't like to think about 
sewage."

As a result, she says, the crap barons rub elbows a few times a year and 
celebrate every chunk of mud in the public's eye and every new technology 
crushed. Yet new technologies do abound, with benefits for municipalitites 
sage enough to invest in them.

A few years ago, St. Paul, Minnesota, decided to buy an incinerator, 
romantically called a "fluidized bed gasifier." While incineration may raise 
some green neck hairs, the emissions that result are lower than if the waste 
was land-applied, with no output of mercury or thallium. This technology 
reduced the city's emissions by 90 percent, saved them $4 million annually 
and reduced neighbour complaints from 70 to two per year.

Yet Reilly recommends a different approach for Halifax. "A properly lined 
landfill with methane recovery is likely best for a city of Halifax's size," 
she says.

By mixing solid waste with sludge at a ratio of seven to one, leachates can 
be eliminated. Methane can also be trapped and used as a power source, 
saving energy and preventing greenhouse gas emissions (because it replaces 
the burning of fossil fuels).

Alternatively, sludge could be converted into synthetic fuel. Reilly 
estimates that sludge has about half the energy of coal. This could be sold 
onto the power grid,further reducing our suicidal climate change tendencies.

None of these ideas have been given much thought in HRM, so maybe it's too 
much to ask that we go even further and consider how we could prevent the 
sludge dilemma upfront. As Reilly points out, the terrible technology of 
mixing fecal and industrial wastes has been with us for centuries, so maybe 
it's too soon to hope for onsite septic systems that separate waste-streams.

In HRM, it's hard to imagine the use of large-scale greywater re-use, 
solar-aquatic sewage facilities or planning systems that integrate green 
spaces and wetlands into sewage planning. Maybe it shouldn't surprise me 
that a friend of mine has been trying for over two years to get approval for 
a smaller septic tank (to accompany his eco-efficient composting toilet) 
from inflexible bureaucrats with no policy and no clue about newfangled 
greenthink.

And any hope for phasing out the use of household and industrial toxins is 
blurred by the setting sun on a distant horizon. And so, for now, we're left 
with a myriad of options that are better than eating our own waste, none of 
which are being considered bythe HRM.

If the city gets its way, thallium-enhanced milk will soon be available at 
your local grocer. All that's needed is Canadian Food Inspection Agency 
approval.

Kate Billingsley, acting national manager of CFIA's fertilizer section, 
couldn't discuss Halifax's application to sell sludge, or even whether we 
have submitted any of the tests required to gain approval of sale. "I can 
only tell you that the Halifax product has not receiveda 
'no-objection-to-sale' letter from CFIA,"she says.

"CFIA acts like contamination levels are secret," Reilly says. "So did you 
get your thallium today?" Nobody knows.

Reilly feels that if we are to get past the age of sludge-dumping on farms, 
the chemical composition of sludge needs to be made public. "We need 
baseline thallium tests on the milk," Reilly says. "The public deserves to 
know the full cost."

Maybe then we could get started on those composting toilets.


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

SW Admin:

Putting sludge with trash in a lined landfill won't eliminate the leachate, 
but it stop some of the mobility of the sludge..anchors it.

The concern is that the N-Viro sludge in storage in Halifax may not meet the 
quality requirements for fertilizer in Canada...but that just means that 
selling it would violate the Fertilizer Act.  It doesn't mean that giving it 
away...or paying farmers to take it...would be illegal.


While the Halifax processed sludge may be too contaminated with toxic metals 
to meet Federal fertilizer requirements,  the Province of Nova Scotia has 
introduced lax sludge regulations.  The toxic sludge produced in Halifax may 
be going on pastureland and farmfields right now - for free...courtesy of 
Halifax Regional Muncipality and the unwitting taxpayer.

People need to know what is in this sludge and where it is going.

I