Chapter Five
HISTORY OF SLUDGE TREATMENT AND USE
NRC in their preface stated the study would cover
six points. The first of NRC's six points we will
examine is:
(1) the historical development, rationale, and scope of
practice of treating municipal wastewater and
sludge in the United States;
According to the NRC report, sludge dumping has a long
history. Sewage farms were first established about 150
years ago and the agricultural benefits were incidental.
The farms were phased out as the land area required to
dispose of large cities grew to great to be practical
and effective technologies were developed to treat
sewage. In fact, according to the NRC report, "These
technologies eliminated the need for sewage farms."
(p. 18)
They claim that, "Early agricultural sludge use
projects were often carried out with little regard for
possible adverse impact to soil or crops (Allen, 1912).
A common goal was to maximize the application rate to
minimize the cost of sludge disposal." (p. 21)
According to the NRC report, we are now returning
to the same type of a situation. "Over the past 20
years, restrictions have been placed on certain sludge
disposal practices (e.g., ocean dumping and landfill
disposal), causing public wastewater treatment utilities
to view agricultural use of sludge as an increasingly
cost-effective alternative." (p. 2)
The basic need for unrestricted dumping of sludge
on farm and ranch land would be, as indicated by the
report that; "The limited capacity of sanitary landfills
is quickly exhausted, and communities are not providing
for new landfills...As society has continued to
reevaluate and regulate disposal options, agricultural
use of sludge is becoming an increasingly attractive
option because of its low cost...." (p.152) While the
dumping of sludge on crops may be low and very cost-
effective in dollars, what will be the cost in the
health of humans and animals?
If there was a problem with the disposal of sludge
in the ocean (it was killing the fish) and with disposal
in highly regulated landfills (landfills are highly
regulated by the solid waste laws and Superfund Act) and
EPA acknowledges that legal landfills can contaminate
ground water, wouldn't there be similar problems with
the unregulated disposal of sludge on cropland?
EPA has claimed that the use of toxic sludge as a
fertilizer on farmland was authorized under Section 405
of the Clean Water Act (CWA). Furthermore, according to
the EPA, the CWA authorized the removal of sludge from
the 1979 solid waste regulation 40 CFR 257 which had
limited restrictions on sludge use. However, very few
states used landfarming as a method of sludge disposal
under part 257, because it reflected the Solid Waste
Laws which stated that sludge from both water and
wastewater treatment plants was a solid waste that must
be disposed of in a highly regulated sanitary landfill.
Moreover, the federal law was designed to prevent the
use of sludge as a fertilizer.
According to the EPA; "The first category of
secondary materials considered to be solid wastes when
recycled and when destined for recycling are secondary
materials used or reused in a manner involving direct
placement on the land. Examples are the direct use of
recycled materials for land reclamation, as dust
suppressants, as fertilizers, and as fill material. In
the Agency's view, these practices are virtually the
equivalent of unsupervised land disposal, a situation
RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) is
designed to prevent. In fact, the Agency regards the
direct use of these materials as fertilizers to be a
form of land treatment--" (FR.48, p.14484).
What has been done to change the quality of sludge
since the EPA made that determination or for that matter
what new processes have been developed to change the
quality of sludge that makes it different from the
sludge that was dumped in the ocean?
Yet, under the provisions of the CWA, the EPA did
arbitrarily exclude sludge from the provisions of the
RCRA, first with the 1981 statement, then the 1984
Agency policy and then with the 1993 regulation which
reflected the policy. This has happened in spite of
NRC's report that, "The intent of the 1987 amendment to
`adequately protect human health and the environment
from reasonable anticipated adverse effects of each
pollutant' [Section 405(d)(2)(D)]." (p. 24)
Is sludge used on farms a valuable commercial
fertilizer as the EPA claims in the new Part 503
regulation (CWA) or is sludge a potentially dangerous
solid waste as the EPA claimed in the old Part 257, and
still claims, in the new Part 258 regulation (RCRA).
Do the toxic chemicals and hazardous substances
regulated by the solid waste division of the EPA, in the
workplace by OSHA, and transportation by DOT, magically
lose their ability to damage health and cause death when
they are placed on crops, particularly, when they can't
be put in a legal part 503 sludge only landfill because
of the high levels of some pollutants?
The allowed beneficial use levels of toxic
pollutants would prevent the sludge from being disposed
of under the subpart on surface disposal in part 503.
According to the regulation, sewage sludge that meets
the beneficial use criteria can not be placed in a
highly regulated part 503 surface disposal site because
of the toxic heavy metals limits. As one example shows,
beneficial use allows 3000 ppm of Chromium to be placed
on crop land vs. 600 ppm of chromium for surface
disposal. (Part 503.13 Tables 1 and 3 / part 503.23
Table 1)
In other words, if the dumper will not claim he's
dumping sludge to at least benefit the growth of grass
under part 503, the sludge must be disposed of in a
highly regulated municipal solid waste landfill.
Actually, it is unlikely anyone even makes the attempt
to distinguish the semantics or the intent of the dumper
any more. Recent documents from Texas and Missouri
refer to beneficial sludge use applications as disposal.
According to the part 503 regulation, when the
sludge can't be disposed of in a highly regulated
landfill under part 503, it must be disposed of as a
solid waste under Federal Law and the guideline 40 CFR
258. In effect, this would include all of the EPA's high
quality fertilizer, plus the sludge with the highest
levels of pollutants allowed as a fertilizer.
This is a major public perception problem for
anyone interested in either their health or the
environment. After concluding that sludge used on crops
is safe, the NRC review leaves us with this warning,
"...it is not likely that all of the sewage sludge will
be applied to cropland in the foreseeable future, and
thus only a very small percentage of the food crops
grown in the United States would ever be exposed to
sewage sludge.....Still, land application of treated
effluents and treated sludge will increase the level of
toxic chemicals and pathogens in the soil." (p. 39-40)
This is the public perception problem that can't go
away. The NRC and EPA assure the general public they are
protected and then NRC acknowledges that toxic chemicals
and pathogens will build up in the soil and, according
to the preamble to the final Part 503 regulation, "if
sewage sludge containing high levels of pathogenic
organisms (e.g., viruses, bacteria) or high
concentrations of pollutants is improperly handled, the
sludge could contaminate the soil, water, crops,
livestock, fish and shellfish." (FR. 58, p. 9258) What
about humans?
The fact is, the EPA water division needs
protection for its policy and insists that Part 503
excludes the release of hazardous or toxic substances
from the dumping of sewage sludge on farm land from any
liability under the Superfund Act (CERCLA). However,
there is a major problem with this, in the preamble to
the Part 258 regulation, the EPA acknowledges that a
legally permitted sanitary landfill is subject to the
liability provisions of the CERCLA (FR. 56, p. 51091-2)
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Review of National Academy of Science's (NAS) 1996 literary review report by
its National Research Council (NRC) Committee :
"Use of Reclaimed Water and Sludge in Food Crop Production"
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