City of Los Angeles,  Los Angeles  County, Orange County  
                                                   vs.
                                     Kern County -- Sludge Ban
August 15, 2006

Los Angeles County Sanitation District  did original studies for EPA in 1988 on chemicals and pathogens in
sludge which were used to justify part 503 land application.   Their failure to mention viable, but
non-culturable bacteria indicate a lack of due diligence or they were fully aware sludge would constitute
agroterrorism as that term applies to current agriculture contamination by chemicals and disease
organisms.


This case is to determine whether a Federal Court will attempt to force Kern County, against the will of the voters in a
legal election, to accept
agroterrorism from the same organizations who, in 1988,  documented the apparent lack of
scientific data on
chemicals (Los Angeles County) and disease causing organisms (Los Angeles County) in sewage
sludge.    The City of Los Angeles, in joining with the two sanitation districts, is asking a federal court  to take away the
right of the voters to protect their
air, water, foodchain and health from exposure to chemicals and disease causing
organisms in the
CWA pollutant (sewage sludge), and RCRA solid waste (sewage sludge), illegally disposed of as a so
called organic fertilizer on agricultural land
(non-point source ) under exclusions in federal law. The case will hinge on
whether EPA
Office of Water has the authority to put public health at risk by creating a fraudulent hazardous waste
disposal regulation (40 CFR 503) based on a policy and EPA  lies to the public as well as lies told by its partners

The lawsuit points out the problem faced by the Plaintiffs who claim under item 101. “As a practical matter, the only way
for a California municipality to manage any significant amount of biosolids is through landfilling or land application, or by
sending it to a different locale to be landfilled or land applied there. Ocean dumping of biosolids is illegal, and
incineration is effectively so, given federal, state and regional air quality regulations. Accordingly, a ban on the land
application of biosolids eliminates the only practical alternative to landfilling and, thus, obstructs the goal of the IWMA to
reduce the use of landfilling as a method of disposal of solid waste.”

A review
1).        Under RCRA, CWA  40 CFR 258 and 40 CFR 503 there is no such material as biosolids;

2).        Sewage sludge is a solid waste under
RCRA and a pollutant under CWA;

3).        Metals, chemicals  and disease causing organisms in sewage sludge are
Toxic Pollutants under CWA;

4).       Solid waste Landfilling guidelines for sewage sludge is under the CWA
regulation
40 CFR 258 and legal enforcement action is to be taken under RCRA; 40 CFR 503 does not comply
with Section 405 of the CWA

5).      Land application (open dumping) of sewage sludge is based on
exclusions in federal laws,
particularly, the CWA agricultural nonpoint source runoff control exclusion;

6).      Plaintiffs claim it is illegal to dump sewage sludge in the ocean, but it is outside the
Law, if it is dumped on farmland first and then runs into the ocean;

7).      Plaintiffs claim incineration is effectively illegal because of air quality standards, but
airborne chemicals and disease causing organisms from a sludge disposal site is
perfectly acceptable -- Kern  County is the Valley Fever Capitol;

Plaintiffs argue under item 112. “The Kern Ban significantly affects residents outside Kern County. For example, the Ban
degrades the environment outside the County, by causing increased usage of California's limited landfill space to
dispose of biosolids and by causing longer haul routes for disposal or reuse of biosolids, thereby leading to traffic and
air quality impacts that extend well beyond the County's borders. The Kern Ban also increases the costs for
management of biosolids throughout central and southern California and Arizona by increasing competition for
alternative management resources, including composting and land application in other counties. It will cause rate
increases for sewage services provided by the government Plaintiffs”

A review
1).     Plaintiffs claim Kern Ban significantly effects the environment outside the county  because it would increase the
use         of California’s limited solid waste landfill space,

2).     Plaintiffs claim the rights to degrade the environment in Kern County, even though the
RCRA prohibits Open
dumping -- the disposal of sludge (a solid waste) outside of a landfill;

3).    Plaintiffs claim Kern Ban would significantly increase cost because of increasing competition for alternative
management resources, including composting;

4).   Composting is not a safe option. While EPA promotes composting as well as land application, it "states, a properly
composted product maintains an active population of beneficial microorganisms that compete against the
pathogenic members. Under some conditions, explosive regrowth of pathogenic microorganisms is
possible."       
http://www.epa.gov/owm/mtb/combioman.pdf

Officers of the Court are not suppose to lie to the court.  But how else do we explain the statement of fact under item 24.
Plaintiffs the City of Los Angeles, Orange County Sanitation District, and County Sanitation District No. 2 of Los Angeles
County generate biosolids pursuant to detailed federal, California, and Kern County requirements that eliminate
pathogens (bacteria and viruses that can cause disease) from the materials, rendering them safe for use and qualifying
them as biosolids. See, e.g., 40 C.F.R. Pt. 503; Kern County Ordinance Code § 8.05, as set forth in Kern County
Ordinance G-6931 (requiring that all biosolids land applied in the unincorporated sections of Kern County (thus
excluding the biosolids generated by Bakersfield and several other cites in Kern County) meet high standards for
pathogen elimination and trace metals based on EPA's Class A, Exceptional Quality ("EQ") standards). EPA's Class A
standard mandates treatment that eliminates microorganisms, including those that could cause diseases. EPA's EQ
standards require that trace metals in biosolids be below certain levels that have been determined to be protective of
human health and the environment. Beneficial use of biosolids has undergone intensive scientific risk assessments by
the United States Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") and repeatedly has been deemed safe for the public and
the environment by objective scientific researchers since the 1970s. See, e.g., National Research Council of the
National Academy of Sciences, Biosolids Applied to Land: Advancing Standards and Practices (2002); Use of Reclaimed
Water and Sludge in Food Crop Production (1996); Letter From Tracy Mehan, EPA Ass't Administrator for Water
(December 22, 2003) (denying petition brought by activist groups to ban land application of biosolids nationwide).
Multiple levels of federal and state standards apply to ensure that biosolids destined for agricultural use will be recycled
without significant risk of harm to humans, animals, crops or the environment.

A review
1).   Federal requirements do not recognize the term biosolids;

2).   There is no federal requirement to
eliminate pathogens from the material or any treatment process to do so;

3).   
40 CFR pt 503.9(t) states that exposure through the air, water or foodchain to the pollutants (chemicals and disease
causing organisms)in sludge could cause death, disease, cancer, etc.;

4).   
40 CFR Pt 503 does not recognize the term Class A, Exception Quality (EQ);

5).   EPA’s Class A standard does not mandate treatment  that eliminates pathogens -- fecal coliforms are suggested to
most probably  average one million colony forming units  per kilogram of sludge  
(1,000 per gram) -- and it does not
consider viable, but noncultureable pathogens; [See notes]

6).   EPA’s "EQ standards", not found in Pt 503.13, are supposedly monthly averages  
(Table 3) for nine toxic pollutants
(metals) and does not consider other
dangerous unregulated metals and chemicals allowed at extremely high levels;

7).   Beneficial use of biosolids has not undergone scientific risk assessment by EPA --
EPA removed the 1989 list of 21
carcinogens noted in the proposed 40 CFR Pt 503 -- EPA did not do a risk assessment for pathogens -- EPA only
did a risk assessment on a few chemicals it did not include for regulation -- and -- EPA did not consider any of the
carcinogenic metals in sludge to cause cancer for the pathways it evaluated;

8).   Neither federal law, the EPA or objective scientific researchers have ever deemed sludge to be safe -- The National
Academy of Science 's (NAS) recent [2002] Committee report on toxicants, states that it is impossible to do a risk
assessment to prove sludge use under part 503 is safe. The scientific statement is very blunt: FINDINGS,"-----the
remaining uncertainty for complex mixtures of chemical and biological agents is sufficient to preclude the
development of  risk-management procedures that can reliability result in acceptable levels of risk." --- The 1996
NRC Report  discussed the limits of the study which included: (1) low illness rate, (2) insufficient sensitivity of current
techniques to detect low-level disease transmission, and (3) no way to actually assess exposure levels. These limits
were imposed on the study because diseases from exposure to wastewater were under-reported, scattered, and
some effects may be unrecorded. And finally, the NRC Report suggested that consumers, farmers, and the general
public could deter inappropriate behavior under the common law liability of the Constitution.;

9).   EPA Office of Water denied the petition by
72 organizations to ban sludge use nationally because the Office of
Water has been
promoting sludge use since 1980 even though it is prohibited by the solid waste rules under RCRA;

10).  Since 40 CFR 503 is based on
exclusions in federal laws;  California does not have an EPA approved sludge
management plan to issue sludge disposal permits for beneficial use; and EPA Office of Compliance and
Enforcement has divested itself from the beneficial use program; there are no standards to assure sludge can be
recycled without significant risk of harm to humans, animals, crops or the environment; and,

11).  "EPA concluded that adequate protection of public health and the environment
did not require the adoption of
standards designed to protect human health or the environment under exposure conditions that are unlikely and
where effects were not significant [$100 million in costs] or widespread." (FR. 58, p. 9252)"

The attorney’s also attempt to mislead the court under the lawsuit item 26. The government Plaintiffs all have
successful, EPA-regulated pretreatment programs that ensure that biosolids applied to Kern County are low in metals
and other contaminants. Pretreatment programs, overseen by the Plaintiffs, keep harmful pollutants out of biosolids by
requiring industrial customers to treat their wastewater to remove many contaminants before it is discharged into
municipal sewers. For example, through the 1980s and 1990s Plaintiff City of Los Angeles dramatically reduced the
quantity of trace metals in its sewage sludge, and the few parts per million of trace metals in its biosolids are far below
EPA thresholds for EQ biosolids. OCSD and Los Angeles County Sanitation District likewise generate biosolids that are
far below EPA's trace metals thresholds for EQ biosolids as required by the prior Kern ordinance. Samples are taken
regularly at the wastewater plants and in Kern County to confirm that any biosolids land applied in Kern meet this
standard.

A review
1).   EPA’s regulated pretreatment program under 40 CFR Pt 403 does not ensure sludge applied in Kern County is low
in metals and other contaminates as EPA allows municipalities to issue removal credits to corporations for the
disposal of 100,000 ppm of unregulated chromium in land applied sludge -- the same amount of removal credit is
allowed if the sludge is disposed of  in a lined landfill -- but only 600 ppm is allowed corporations for removal credit if
the chromium contaminated sludge is disposed of in a 40 CFR 503 regulated surface disposal site;

2).   Pretreatment programs overseen by plaintiffs allow removal credits for corporations on some chemicals that are
hundreds, or even thousands, of times the hazardous waste levels,  if they are land applied by the wastewater
treatment authority;

3).   Plaintiffs are aware that EPA'
40 CFR Pt 403, Appendix G, Table II for Toxic Pollutant removal credits deliberately
misleads the uninformed public by including gram levels of toxic pollutants in the Table labelled milligrams per
kilograms.

3).   The County Sanitary Districts of
Los Angeles County did a study on chemical contaminants in 1988 and found:
Efforts to characterize major unknown organic components were limited to computer comparisons of  GC/MS peaks
to the NBS mass spectral library. In none of the cases was a tentative identification made. Manual review of those
components with a high degree of fit with an NBS library compound (>8O%) allowed probable compound class
assignment for many peaks. Virtually all of the major components classified appeared to be aliphatics or carboxylic
acid type compounds. A majority of the sample extracts exhibited a hydrocarbon "hump" in the ion chromatograms.
The peaks reviewed, therefore, were superimposed on this background. As a result, a significant portion of the
major peaks were multi-component peaks whose identities remain completely unknown.

4).  No federal law or regulation recognizes the term trace metals -- they do recognize
hazardous constituents,
hazardous substances, toxic pollutants, pollutants, and priority pollutants

Attorney’s keep repeating the same information attempting to mislead the court in item,
27. The government Plaintiffs' biosolids are also treated to meet the highest standards for the elimination of pathogens
(bacteria and viruses that can cause disease). While sewage sludge does not necessarily contain pathogens, EPA has
approved several methods for eliminating microorganisms in biosolids that will also kill any pathogens present. Biosolids
that are treated to the highest level of pathogen reduction are labeled Class A biosolids and are under few federal
restrictions for their use as fertilizer.

A review
1).  While government Plaintiffs claim their sludge is treated to meet the highest standards for the elimination of
pathogens they only mention bacteria and viruses which are nor eliminated, only reduced --and --
helmiths, protozoa
and fungi are ignored;

2).   Plaintiffs claim sludge does not necessarily contain pathogens, yet in a
1988 study on compost by the Orange
County Sanitation District, it was found, The potential bacterial pathogens regularly detected were Salmonella and
Yersinia (Plague?). Salmonellae were detected at both facilities. Yersinia only occurred significantly at the static pile
facility and were isolated in a pattern consistent with a seasonal occurrence. At the windrow facility, salmonellae
were primarily isolated from amended compost products. Toxigenic E. coli were randomly isolated. No
Campylobacter were detected [see notes-VBNC]. Little is known about the occurrence or fate of enteropathogenic E.
coli in sludge and sludge treatment processes. The potential for pathogenic E. coli regrowth in sludge products is
unknown, but certainly possible. In contrast to the paucity of data concerning pathogenic E. coli in sludges, the
salmonellae have  been widely studied. The previously cited reviews summarize much of this work. It has been
estimated that up to 2 million people per year acquire Salmonella infections, and the rate has been increasing in
recent years. For this reason one of the prime concerns is the potential for salmonellae regrowth. Studies have found
that salmonellae would grow to high levels in sterilized sludge. Other experiments demonstrated regrowth of
indigenous salmonellae within the naturally occurring mixed microbial population of compost.

3)    While EPA has
several methods it claims will reduce fecal coliforms and Salmonella, it does not have any methods
which will also kill any pathogens present in sewage sludge plaintiffs refer to as biosolids.

4).   As members of the Water Environment Federation
(WEF), and supporting members of the Water Environment
Research Federation
(WERF), which recently (June 2006) published a study stating "indicator organisms may
"hibernate" and become "non-culturable." This phenomenon is referred to as "viable but non-culturable". The issue
of viable but non-culturable (VBNC) bacteria was advanced in the 1980s, and gained significant interest in medicine,
the food industry, and many other fields."

Notes
With all of the research by plaintiffs and their partners, they would like the court to believe the "viable, but non-
culturable" phenomenon is new to them and EPA.

In their 1973 study, Airborne Stability of Simian Virus 40 , T. G. AKERS, et al., (186)   found viruses could also be viable
(infectious), but non-cultureable (VBNC). They said, "Previous studies, which have revealed that infectious viral nucleic  
acids were not damaged with respect to biological activity either by atomization, aerosol storage, or collection

James D. Oliver,(48) Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2005, notes, "Since the original
1982 paper from the laboratory of Rita Colwell (Xu et al., 1982), over 400 papers have appeared which describe various
aspects of the phenomenon most commonly referred to as the " but nonculturable (VBNC) state"
http://deadlydeceit.com/airborne_aerosols.html

February 2006 EDO Mcgowan asked,  "If Staphylococcus aureus are found dead, does that mean that the problem is
solved?" The corollary: Are they dead, or merely in the viable but nonculturable state, in a starvation arrested state, or
killed from a starvation but otherwise in a recoverable state by sudden nutrient excess in the culture?
http://deadlydeceit.com/necrotizingf.html

"Straub, Pepper and Gerba say that the list of pathogens are not constant but keep changing: As advances in analytical
techniques and changes in society have occurred, new pathogens are recognized and the  significance of well-known
ones change. Microorganisms are subject to mutation and evolution, allowing for adaptation  to changes in the
environment. In addition, many pathogens are viable but nonculturable by current techniques
(Rozak  and Colwell
1987)
, and actual concentrations in sludge are probably underestimated.(p. 58)"

The 2001 Stefano Dumontet et al., study " The Importance of Pathogenic Organisms in Sewage and Sewage Sludge"
reported in the J. Air & Waste Manage. Assoc., "Bacterial pathogens in sewage sludge contribute significantly to health
problems, locally and globally."  "Technical limitations for detection and isolation procedures can be considered the main
difficulties in monitoring sludge pathogens. In addition, pathogenic bacteria  introduced into a hostile environment may
become viable but not culturable121 without losing their virulence factors. Note also that sludge may contain several
xenobiotic compounds, and composted sludge could facilitate inhospitalities between pathogenic bacteria." (29)

James D. Oliver,(48) Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2005.
Furthermore, he said, "The number of species described to enter the VBNC state constantly increases, with
approximately 60 now reported to demonstrate this physiological response. Included are a large number of human
pathogens, including Campylobacter spp., E. coli (including EHEC strains), Francisella tularensis, Helicobacter pylori,
Legionella pneumophila, Listeria monocytogenes, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, several
Salmonella and Shigella spp. and Vibrio cholerae, V. Parahaemolyticus, and V. Vulnificus."
http://deadlydeceit.com/Recycling_death.html