Questions Still Abound About Use of Sludge

When the General Assembly moved oversight of the spreading of treated sewage sludge from the state Department of Health to the Department of Environmental Quality in 2007, it was a step in the right direction for all Virginians. The move increased inspections and regulations of the use of sludge on farmlands in Virginia.

At roughly the same time, the Assembly created a legislative panel to examine questions about use of the solid waste as fertilizer and to find out whether it is safe. Among the questions the legislative panel was to answer about the spread of biosolids, as the industry likes to call the waste, were these:

* What are the effects on human health and water quality and wildlife?

* Does it contaminate the food chain?

* Is there any validity to claims it has caused human health problems?

But to answer those questions, the panel would have had to know what is in the sludge that comes to Virginia from such places as New York City, cities in New Jersey and Washington, D.C. And then it would have to ask if the contents of the sludge are safe.

It failed to answer those questions because it didn’t look closely enough. Why? Because the Assembly did not put up enough money to get the job done.

And so, with those questions still unanswered, a Richmond-based biosolids company has applied for a permit to spread the sludge on about 3,600 acres of farmland in Campbell County. The request comes from Nutri-Blend Inc. and encompasses acreage that had originally been targeted for application in 2006.

Consideration of those permits was halted when the Assembly moved oversight of the permit process from the health department to DEQ. The permit requests are among the first to be evaluated by the DEQ in a process that is expected to be more rigorous than under the former health department regulations.

The largest tract, 900 acres, is in the Rustburg area. More than 450 acres involved in the permit request are in the Long Island area, while other fields are in Brookneal, Red House and Gladys areas.

DEQ will hold a public informational meeting on the permit requests June 11. It will then take comments on the application for 30 days. That will be followed by a draft permit with another 30-day comment period. And that could be followed by another public hearing if 25 or more people request it.

The new permit process does give the public a better chance to know where and when the sludge would be spread. But the public concerns about the safety of the sludge remain.

Federal regulations require that it be tested for nine heavy metals. But, as the Daily Press in Newport News questioned in an editorial in February, what about “the other things that might be concerns: bacteria and viruses, toxins, solvents and pharmaceuticals?”

The editorial observed that the panel’s report “is a guided tour of what we don’t know, shedding light on gaps here and lack of research there and all the questions that remain outstanding.” It pointed out that the legislative panel’s charge from the Assembly was, among other things, to “evaluate the toxic potential of biosolid constituent ... to humans, agricultural products, soil organisms and wildlife.”

It didn’t do that because the legislature did not provide the money for such evaluation. The public, which depends in part on the government for its health and safety, deserves better than that.

The time to answer those critical questions about the sludge — what’s in it and is it safe — is before the effects of the sludge on humans become known, not after. In the meantime, sadly, companies like Nutri-Blend, continue to apply for permits to spread the sludge on an increasing number of Virginia farmland acres. Campbell County is but the latest one to come to public view.