"Maryland's Out-House" by Vernon Gray

Did you know that in 1998 and 1999, St. Mary’s County was the disposal site for more sewage sludge than any other county in Maryland? Did you know that last year St. Mary’s County was used as the dumping grounds for half of the 15,000 tons of chicken manure produced on the Eastern Shore? Probably not, because the county commissioners are not required to inform the public of this information. Without the public’s knowledge St. Mary’s County has become Maryland’s out-house.

In 1999, St. Mary’s County farmland was used to dispose of 60,252 wet tons of sludge, all imported from out-of-county, and primarily from Baltimore’s Back River treatment plant. In contrast, Calvert County received 27,052 and Charles County received 24,697 wet tons in 1999. However, combined together, the three Southern Maryland counties accounted for 41 percent of the total sludge applied to farmland throughout the state in 1999.

As recently as 1996, St. Mary’s County received only 16,817 wet tons of sludge. Why has there been a 258 percent increase in sludge disposal in St. Mary’s County between 1996 to 1999? Why is St. Mary’s County receiving more sludge than any other county?

The way the system works is that private sludge haulers contract with sewage treatment plants to remove their sludge. The sludge haulers contract with farmers for the use of their land for sludge disposal. The sludge haulers then apply to the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) for a sludge application permit and pay a permit fee to the state.

So, the reason for the tremendous amount of sludge disposal in Southern Maryland, and especially St. Mary’s County, is that private sludge haulers are targeting landowners in this area. As identified by MDE, these sludge haulers are primarily Mobile Dredging & Pumping and Atlantic Coastal Trucking, which is also a sub-contractor to Mobile.

There are presently 68 active sludge application permits for 5,496 acres (agricultural and marginal land) in St. Mary’s County. Of the 68 permits, Mobile Dredging & Pumping holds 46 and Atlantic Coastal Trucking has 3 permits. The largest parcels of land receiving sludge are the 662 acres aboard the NAS Patuxent River, 347 acres owned by Audrey Mattingly, 283 acres owned by Daniel Capper, and 206 acres at the NAF Webster Field. Notably, there is also a permit held by Bio Gro (Waste Management) for 149 acres owned by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources [St. Mary’s River State Park?].

In 1996 the National Research Council recommended that sludge, when used as farmland fertilizer, be applied at an average of 4.5 tons per acre. This is based on the average nitrogen needs of crops versus the nitrogen content of sludge, not any safety standard or risk threshold. If 4.5 tons per acre had been applied to the 5,320 permitted agricultural acres in St. Mary’s County, then no more than a total of 23,941 tons of sludge would have been applied. Assuming the actual 60,252 tons in 1999 was uniformly applied to 5,496 acres, the application rate is 11 tons per acre!

People often ask if the land application of sludge is safe? The federal and state rules that govern sludge disposal on land are based on calculations of acceptable RISK – not safety!

In the U.S. Federal Register (Vol. 55, No. 218, Nov. 9, 1990) the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says of sludge: "The chemical composition and biological constituents of the sludge depend upon the composition of the wastewater entering the treatment facilities and the subsequent treatment processes. Typically, these constituents may include volatiles, organic solids, nutrients, disease-causing pathogenic organisms (e.g., bacteria, viruses, etc.), heavy metals and inorganic ions, and toxic organic chemicals from industrial wastes, household chemicals, and pesticides." From this statement any reasonable person would conclude that sludge is UNSAFE!

The 1988 National Sewage Sludge Survey of 208 treatment plants found over 100 synthetic organic compounds and 42 different pesticides in sludge. Dioxins were found in sludge from 80 percent of the treatment plants. None of these chemical contaminants are regulated in sludge. The average concentration of heavy metals in sewage sludge was 20 times the average concentration in uncontaminated soil. Of the hundreds of chemicals found in sludge, the EPA regulates only nine commonly occurring heavy metals.

Contaminant levels that were once classified by the EPA as hazardous wastes are supposedly safe in sludge. Levels of lead, for example, that the EPA says are hazardous to children’s health in other settings are of no concern in sludge. The EPA has said that there is no safe level of chloroform in drinking water, but 10,000 parts per billion in sludge supposedly poses no risk to public health. The EPA’s position is that even low levels of PCBs are a cancer risk, but the same levels are permitted in sludge. As a part of the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act, the risk standard for pesticides and other chemicals is one cancer case per ten million exposed individuals. For the sludge standards, the EPA uses the risk standard of 1 in 10,000 – 100 times weaker than the standards for pesticides in food.

In 1989 the EPA confirmed at least 25 family groups of hundreds of pathogens and at least 15 cancer causing agents in sewage sludge. In 1993 it confirmed 126 priority toxic pollutants in sewage sludge that would cause death, disease, cancer, etc., when exposure was either direct by ingestion, inhalation or indirectly through the food chain. The same disease organisms (Salmonella, E. coli, hepatitis A, Cyclosporia and others) which cause approximately 50 million cases of food poisoning and 9,000 deaths annually are also present in so-called "beneficial use" sludge, according to the National Center for Disease Control.

The National Food Processors Association (NFPA) has expressed serious reservations about the use of sewage sludge as a fertilizer: "Sewage sludge can contain human pathogens that could infect farm workers and others who may enter the fields. It may also contain heavy metals and other toxics (PCBs) that will appear as residues in or on the foods." The NFPA has stated that it, "does not endorse the use of sewage sludge on cropland." Heinz and Del Monte corporations have banned the use of sludge on any land used for growing their food crops. The American Frozen Food Institute (AFFI) supports a halt to the practice of applying sludge to farmland. The National Organic Standards Board has recommended to the U.S. Department of Agriculture that sewage sludge should not be allowed in organic food production.

Sludge haulers promote sludge as a fertilizer. Notably, when sludge is used as a fertilizer, it is exempt from the liability provisions of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA). Even if sludge should create a Superfund site, or if death, disease, cancer and other assorted health problems occur, there is no recourse under federal laws and no liability for any damages to human health or the environment. As a condition to accepting sludge, farmers should require the sludge haulers to provide them with indemnification against lawsuits.

Sludge is offered free to farmers as a source of nitrogen and phosphorus and other plant nutrients. In relation to natural soil, sludge is very low in nitrogen content (2.9 N). Therefore, massive quantities of sludge must be spread on farmland to attain the levels of nitrogen needed to act as a fertilizer. But, sludge also contains constituents that are non-essential and may even be detrimental to crops. For example, relatively large amounts of copper, zinc and nickel can cause plant toxicity that reduces crop yields.

According to the EPA, MDE and sludge haulers, sludge is safe because there are no documented cases of anyone ever being harmed by sludge. Can we trust government agencies, whose purpose it is to promote the use of sludge, and sludge haulers, who are motivated by profit, to protect the public health?

Maryland regulations require no grazing by animals for 30 days, controlled public access for 12 months, and no raw-eaten crops to be grown for 3 years on land that has had sludge applied to it. Obviously, these restrictions are required because sludge is UNSAFE. Yet, no safeguards exist to warn new homeowners if sludged farmland is converted to housing developments within these time constraints. Buyer, beware! Are your children playing on sludge contaminated soil? Are you growing vegetables in a sludge contaminated home garden?

With only one MDE inspector assigned to all of Southern Maryland, there is obviously inadequate enforcement and oversight. The regulatory system is largely based upon trusting the treatment plant operators, sludge haulers and farmers to obey the rules. The recent revelation that MDE has fined Atlantic Coastal Trucking, for allegedly applying sludge to snow-covered land last winter aboard the naval air station, is reason in itself to lack confidence in the trustworthiness of the system.

In 1992, when the ban on the ocean dumping of sludge went into effect, sewage sludge was re-christened in a public relations campaign with descriptions such as beneficial bio-solids, soil conditioner, fertilizer, and compost, instead of the EPA’s previous classification of sludge as a hazardous material. Ask yourself, why is it that sludge is too toxic for dumping in oceans but safe for spreading on farmland?

Are the cost-savings to farmers of using free sludge, instead of buying commercial fertilizers, worth the risk of possibly causing permanent damage to irreplaceable farmland? Do the supposed beneficial nutrients outweigh the dangers of the toxics in sludge? Are the short-term benefits worth the long-term risks? What will we reap from sowing sludge?

©Copyright 2000 Vernon Gray