Buried in sludge

If you think the debate over spreading sewage on farmland is hot now, wait until new EPA standards allowing higher levels of toxins in the waste take effect next month

By Mary Lou Wendell

To hear Pamela Gratton tell it, people are wary about the practice of spreading sewage sludge on farmland because they were conditioned against "nasty cockapoopoo" in early childhood.

"The reticence comes from potty training," says Gratton, technical services director of Bio-Gro, a division of Wheelabrator Water Technologies that disposes of sludge for the Portland Water District. BioGro, which is based in Maryland and has sewage disposal contracts in 23 states, recently gave up on the idea of spreading up to 600 tons of Portland sewage sludge in the New Hampshire border town of Parsonsfield, Maine, after residents there complained loudly. The company has said it will spread the sludge on another of its licensed sites in Southern Maine. "When we were young, our mothers talked us into believing it was nasty cockapoopoo. Our mothers teach it to us. So we retain a certain prejudice about everything that goes into the commode."

But Maine residents who oppose sewage sludge spreading say, while the smell of the treated sewage is a nuisance, their main concern is with heavy metals. Copper, zinc, lead, chromium, mercury, and many other heavy metals associated with a wide variety of health problems are contained within the sludge. What's worse, new state rules have relaxed the ceilings on heavy metals allowed in the sewage waste that's spread on farmlands, creating cause for even greater alarm by sludge opponents. These metals come from industrial waste and the variety of toxic substances like paint products that residents often dump down their drains. Opponents also worry about pathogens contained within the sludge, which can also make people sick. While treatment plants process much of the waste to eliminate pathogens, it's impossible to get rid of them all.

"We're quite concerned," says Richard Richardson, who owns a pick-your-own strawberry farm in Clinton and has a neighbor who just got permitted by the state's Department of Environmental Protection to spread sewage sludge on his farmland. The "treatment" that occurs at sewage treatment facilities is a "misnomer," Richardson says. "They raise the pH level by adding lime and then they spread it on the land. . . . The thing is these heavy metals, they don't disappear."

In Maine, about 50,000 tons of sewage sludge is spread on farmland throughout the state each year. Alternatives to spreading are landfilling and incineration, which are more costly options and therefore less appealing to many towns. Many farmers readily agree to accept the sludge and use it as fertilizer. In some cases, no money exchanges hands, but some are paid to take it and are reportedly earning considerable sums.

In Clinton, Richardson worries that the sludge his neighbor will eventually spread on his land will pollute his own property and drive his strawberry customers away. There are many others like Richardson and the sludge-spreading opponents in Parsonsfield. In recent years in Maine, residents in about 35 communities, including Lincoln, Unity, Pittston, and Falmouth, have geared up to fight against sludge spreading in their neighborhoods, according to Will Everitt, an organizer with the Toxics Action Center in Portland. Richardson hopes opposition will gain enough steam to someday organize a statewide referendum banning the practice of sewage sludge spreading altogether.

Despite the increasing resistance to sludge spreading, the DEP spent the last seven years working on changes that weakened the rules on the amount of heavy metals that can be contained within the sewage sludge that's spread in Maine. The new rules, which companies must begin complying with by July 19, made it tougher for companies to dump sludge on wetlands, which environmentalists say is a good thing. However, the same rule changes increased sewage sludge ceilings for nine heavy metals -- one, lead, actually went down -- were based on national EPA guidelines that came out in 1993, explains James Pollock, an environmental specialist with the DEP. Those were based on health- and environmental-risk-assessment models designed by the EPA, Pollock says. So the DEP felt comfortable raising the state's ceilings on heavy metals to meet the national guidelines. In other words, if the EPA says it's safe, then it's safe. The problem is, according to opponents, those risk-assessment models created by the EPA were flawed.

Three researchers at the Waste Management Institute at Cornell University released a study last year that criticized the EPA's sludge rules, saying they do "not appear adequately protective of human health." Ellen Harrison, one of the researchers, was incredulous but not surprised to learn that Maine has changed it's rules to match the EPA's guidelines. Harrison says many states have done the same. During a telephone interview, Harrison asks, out of curiosity, what the old ceiling was in Maine for the heavy metal cadmium. It was 10 parts per million.

"And they've raised it to 39?"

Yes.

"Bad move," Harrison responds simply.

Why is that?

"Based on an analysis of the EPA's risk assessment, that risk assessment is severely flawed . . . We don't believe that the EPA limits are as conservative as we believe is warranted," she says. Harrison explains that Maine is similar to New York in that it has acidic and relatively shallow soil, which is more vulnerable to heavy metals. Maine also has abundant water and residents who rely on groundwater for drinking, which is often in relatively close proximity to sewage-sludge spreading. "This gives us reason to believe that more stringent rules are warranted in New York," Harrison says. The same applies to Maine.

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