[USCC] Vol 29, #9--Regulation by various agencies

[Rufus Chaney]

Dear Mr. McGowan and USCC Listserve participants:

I want to add to the comment from David Schellinger that arrived this morning. I agree that critical comments about biosolids and about compost should be careful to be sure what is being talked about. The article from the Lynchburg newspaper was really about the sewer overflows that occur during high volume storms (a national problem that EPA is trying to address). This has nothing to do with composting or use of compost, the main focus of the USCC Listserve discussion group.

In addition, I would note that it helps no one to keep making such "paper tiger" arguments about 503, EPA, and biosolids practices at the state and community level. "Paper Tigers" are false logic argument techniques in which one builds up something to be bigger than it really is, and then knocks it down because it is not as perfect as claimed. The 503 rule was never given the enforcement authority at the Federal Level that some believe was supposed to be occur. Some see this as EPA should have either installed the enforcement capability or set up methods to pass thru to states the money to actually do the enforcement. There is a long history of delay in state adoption of "delegated authority" to enforce 503 because of the failure of the Fed to pay for this cost, but eventually most states have completed the delegation. Only a fool would have expected EPA to run the 503 enforcement from the Federal level, thru the EPA regions. And EPA has been spanked about this repeatedly. But this has been well known for a long time.

In reality, state governments have continuously conducted enforcement (from long before 503 was proposed in 1989), as have County and City health department and environment departments. Yes, there have been local failures of enforcement where malodor has offended the community. Over time these have been resolved and POTWS and their contractors have to prevent the adverse effects of malodor and other environmental aspects of biosolids use, and of composting facilities.

Lastly, I would like to stress that (in my view) the USCC Listserve Composting discussion group is not supposed to be so much about biosolids per se. Yes, about biosolids composting, and beneficial/commercial use of biosolids compost. I believe that the extensive and repeated anti-biosolids comments from a few participants are really out of place in this Listserve. And "paper tiger" arguments are inappropriate in a professional discussion of composting and use of composts to further the development and application of composting as an environmental protection and soil improvement technology. I feel also that non-composting or false-composting methods such as "anaerobic composting" or "sheet-composting" should only be part of this discussion group in that their non-composting is clearly discussed. Most of the participants recognize that composting offers a solution to malodorous direct application of highly biodegradable organic matter that would actually harm plants if applied to soils directly. And the power to reduce pathogens to levels which are acceptable in soil amendments for food crops. Composting works, and it is an important tool in management of organic residuals around the world. And Composts are remarkable tools in soil improvement and remediation of distrurbed soils. Because the N is stabilized, high enough applications of stabilized carbon can be made to achieve great soil improvement in a single treatment, and this tool is valuable for many agricultural, horticultural and environmental protection goals.

Many feedstocks can contribute to valuable composts, and working out how to compost new combinations of feedstocks and comply with 503 for stabilization and pathogen reduction has been the traditional focus of this discussion group, along with management of composting operations and making a profit while composting. I hope we can return the focus to the needs of the composting industry rather than anti-biosolids interest groups. You anti-biosolids folks have you own Listserve, and your repeated and extensive claims against biosolids only confuse the issues for most who are interested in proper composting and enforcement of composting rules and product quality.

Regards all,

Rufus Chaney
Beltsville, MD

>>> Edo McGowan <edomcgowan at earthlink.net> 07/20/06 09:52AM >>>

Evidence for the absence of control in land applied biosolids 

The facade is cracking and the new clothes of the king are in tatters.

Within this list-serve we have discussed the land application of biosolids and their products. Within those discussions have been debates on how well the 503 regs have worked, whether or not EPA had the requisite capacity to deal with pathogens and passing the baton of regulatory control to the local jurisdictions. The NAS/NRC 2002 report on the land application of sewer sludge admonished EPA that it needed to do more study, that its basis for 503 was flawed. The EPA Inspector General reiterated these concerns. Cornell came out with a telling report, yet the spin masters of sludge continue as tailors to the king. The excerpt below from the Lynchburg Virginia News and Advance merely amplifies this--note reference to biosolids.

The Sugar Creek study, a peer reviewed paper demonstrated that land applied sewer sludge (aka biosolids) does not stay where it is placed and the pathogens do move. Gerba in other contexts demonstrated that once within marine/estuary sediments, the sewage derived viruses had long survival and that even the fragments from some of virons were still infective. Dust is a vehicle for pathogen movement. Gerba in unpublished studies has noted contamination spread throughout a home. Rusin and Gerba published on finger to mouth transfer of pathogens. Workers at composting operations have reported similar symptoms to those reported by neighbors within areas of land applied sewer sludge. Monday morning fever is a classically studied condition. The literature is replete with other examples.

The State of California, through its Worker Comp program is now processing several adverse health claims by prison staff who work down wind from a sewer sludge composting operation. Since the prison guard to inmate ratio usually shows an abundance of inmates to guards, there is thus reason to suspect that several of the inmates are also suffering from similar illnesses. Because it is within the perview of Worker Comp, the files are not available. I have, however, discussed some of this with attorneys. These are not just ANECDOTAL reportings.

I have shown in previous postings that the EPA enforcement division was highly stressed and essentially incapable of adequate monitoring. Again, it must be remembered that the EPA Inspector General came to this same conclusion. The agency actually does not regulate as much as it depends on industry to self-regulate. This situation has seen an absence of record keeping and thus the "absence of illnesses" has been a self-fulfilling prophecy based on the lack of adequate policy. 

Until the industry begins to help police itself in a very serious way, it will suffer being tarred with the same brush as those bad apples within its midst. In the long run the spin doctors who claim all is well will help lead the industry down the primrose path into ruin. Science will prevail over spin. Science does not flow from authority and dogma does not direct science in spite what some in the spin industry may think.

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>From the Lynchburg Virginia 
News and Advance 

Monday, July 17, 2006 

State environmental officials are studying the sources of pollution in Lynchburg-area waterways. Officials with the Department of Environmental Quality, the Department of Conservation and Recreation, and Virginiaâ€*s Region 2000-Local Government Council held a public meeting at Lynchburg College on Monday night to share preliminary results of a yearlong water quality study to be completed in early 2007. 


So far, the study has found a variety of ways the pollutant enters the waterways, including through: pet, livestock and wildlife waste; combined sewer overflows; biosolids and broken septic systems.