[Durham INC] Fw: Chapel Hill Herald Sun reporter: Wastewater treatment plants not the enemy

Fri Aug 7 13:56:11 EDT 2009

FYI -- interesting story in the CH herald regarding the challenges with sludge application as 'fertilizer'

--Melissa (Rooney)

--- On Fri, 8/7/09, Sue Dayton <sdayton at swcp.com> wrote:

From: Sue Dayton <sdayton at swcp.com>
Subject: [Sludge] Chapel Hill Herald Sun reporter: Wastewater treatment plants not the enemy
To: "'Sludge'" <sludge at lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Friday, August 7, 2009, 7:46 AM

http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/opinion/columnists/guests_ch/110-1190612.cfm?

Tim Keim: Make your voice heard on sludge

By Tim Keim : Guest columnist
The Herald-Sun
Aug 5, 2009 

After my recent missive in opposition to the spreading of sewage sludge on our local farmlands, I drew the ire of a Burlington sewage plant official because of my strong word choice. Since my criticism had not been aimed at him or Burlington , I thought this would be a good opportunity to engage in mutual understanding between us. I contacted Eric Davis, water and sewer operations manager, apologized for any unintended offense and began a dialogue. 

Surprised at my contact, Davis took the opportunity to invite me to see the Burlington operation and biosolids farm application for myself. Biosolids is the euphemism chosen by industry to replace the more pejorative term, sludge. 

So, I made the pleasant drive to Burlington and met with Davis and Shane Fletcher, the residuals management coordinator. They explained how the residual human waste solids were "stabilized," mixed them with lime until a pH of 12.0 is reached and held for 2.5 hours and 11.5 for 22.5 hours. Stabilization is meant to kill bacteria. 

>From the sewage treatment plant we drove to a nearby farm where application was in progress. Davis described the parameters used for testing the sludge for heavy metals content and spraying the liquid in water sheds. Marker flags are used by Synagro, the company contracted to spread the waste, to delineate the application boundaries. Fletcher will sometimes reset the markers if he thinks they are too close to slopes falling away to water courses. A 100-foot buffer is required between application and streams. 

Many citizens are concerned about possible health effects of using sludge to fertilize farmland. Heavy metals and thousands of toxic chemicals, including pharmaceutical drugs, are present in sludge. Davis admitted that he, too, was troubled by this fact. We talked about evidence showing that antibiotic resistant bacteria are breeding in sludge even after stabilization. 

The law says that no more than 2 million colony forming units (CFU) can be contained in each dry gram of sludge. When you multiply that allowance by the number of tons of material spread on our farmland, that's still a lot of viable organisms mutating under the influence of the toxic chemicals to which they are exposed. 

As I cited in my last sludge editorial, farmers have successfully sued because their land was contaminated by toxic heavy metals, which also killed their cattle. Citizens living adjacent to farmlands where sludge has been spread claim that they've been sickened, sometimes to death, because of their exposure to this practice. 

But it's all perfectly legal; and I don't fault Davis, Fletcher, or any municipality for following the law. We have to follow some rules about the disposition of our waste. It's all we've got at present. 

I came away from my visit with the impression that these were honorable, conscientious men doing their best in a difficult situation. They are not the enemy. Our suspicion is better directed at Synagro and other corporations that wield an inordinate amount of influence over Congress and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. They, their lobbyists, and their money help write waste disposal laws that fatten Synagro's bottom line at the expense of American families. I've said it before: some of the most heinous crimes are perfectly legal. This is just another in a long history of cases demonstrating how distant corporate power intimately affects our local food and water supply. We're told that sludge spreading is safe only to find that it's not so; the voice of truth drowned out by the volume of corrupt corporate influence. Our water and soil, and ultimately our food, are polluted, our health is threatened -- yet Synagro grows richer. 

The sludge issue is soon to be revisited by the Chatham County Board of Commissioners. If they hear from you, your protest will harmonize with the voices of other communities throughout our land so that healthy, innovative ways will be implemented to deal with our waste and protect our health. This is how democracy works. The government is a creature of the people. Get up and animate it to do your will. Chatham has a county board that will listen. Let them hear from you! 

Tim Keim is a Pittsboro resident, writer, radio news and documentary journalist and member of the Chatham County Planning Board. Readers can contact him at chh at heraldsun.com or c/o The Chapel Hill Herald, 106 Mallette St. , Chapel Hill , NC 27516 .

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