Why would anyone do that? Who are those guys?*
*Butch: "They're beginning to get on my nerves. Who are those guys?" (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969). Those guys are any and all Land-Disposed Sewage Sludge advocates, and their colleagues.
We've been studying Sewage Sludge and its adverse effects on Public Health & Safety and on Human & Environmental Health for decades, and where are we? We're held hostage by the vast agency/industrial forces focused on providing costly disposal services to public utilities, as endorsed by their academic advocates, all for no public good or benefit. The lobbyists win; the public loses. There is no imaginable Beneficial Use or Beneficial Reuse of Toxic Sewage Sludge by any means of Land Disposal. We've been taken, and what we get back is the right to get sick.
Is there any justification for anyone to do that? What have we learned?
- 1.Sewage Sludge Disposal in forests and on farms and rangelands is Toxic Waste Disposal.
- 2.Sewage Sludge is Toxic because it kills nearly everything it touches, with the exception of a few fungi, plus some trees, blackberries and a few other toxin-tolerant life forms.
- 3.Sewage Sludge is Land-Disposed in forests and on farms and rangelands as Open-Dumping of Toxic Waste by plan and intent.
- 4.Sewage Sludge is Land-Disposed in forests, not at Agronomic Rates, but at rates that far exceed what any plant life could ever bioassimilate or utilize, based on Nitrogen and Phosphate content, or by micronutrient assimilation, with the surpluses thereafter contaminating ground and surface waters, while supporting algal blooms.
- 5.Sewage Sludge is Land-Disposed in or around wetlands, including wetlands that are 'adjacent' to other wetlands, and in wetlands that are in forests, as a function of inconsistencies in the definition of 'Wetland', EPA: Wetlands are lands where saturation with water is the dominant factor determining the nature of soil development and the types of plant and animal communities living in the soil and on its surface. Wetlands vary widely because of regional and local differences in soils, topography, climate, hydrology, water chemistry, vegetation and other factors, including human disturbance. For regulatory purposes under the Clean Water Act, the term wetlands means "those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or groundwater at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions.
- 6.Certain forest fungi are able to tolerate Toxic Sewage Sludge, and appear to thrive, perhaps by metabolizing some of the toxic chemicals therein.
- 7.Recovery by killed or impaired biota after exposure to Toxic Sludge is slow and staged, based on degree of toxin tolerance, rate of rainfall, competitive inhibition, or more; a few forest fungi, and some plants, slugs, tadpoles and insects are seen to begin recovery after about 9 – 11 months post-exposure, as a function of rainfall and the associated leaching and transport of toxins, or perhaps by degradation of certain Sludge-borne toxins.
- 8.Certain Green Algae appear to thrive and bloom in Sewage Sludge leachates.
- 9.Site planning in anticipation of Sewage Sludge dumping is generally inappropriate from the view of environmental sensitivity or stewardship, in that while some regulations may be followed to approach "Compliance," consideration of Sludge leachate and runoff to springs, wetlands, streams, rivers, and the like, do not appear to hold precedence over convenience. In that there is a negative ecosystem benefit from Sewage Sludge Disposal in forests (e.g., mass die-offs), it is only the factors of lowest-cost disposal and greatest convenience that rule the day.
- 10.Wildlife Habitat in not Improved in response to Toxic Sewage Sludge disposal in forests, but is destroyed by coverage with deep Toxic Sewage Sludge. Reports about increased reproduction rates among forest animals in response to Land-Disposal of Sewage Sludge are considered as being selective, contrived and deceptive, and without merit.
- 11.The bad idea of, "It just goes away," is unfounded and deceptive. I have followed the decomposition, leaching and runoff of Sewage Sludge in forests personally for as long as six years from a single site, and the Sludge remnants remain there to this day. It does not "Just go away;" it leaches and flows into or across soils, whether on mountain ridges, in valleys, in wetlands or on relatively flat forested areas, without exception. Sludge-borne toxic chemicals are likely transported with the leachates, yet they have never been evaluated for their Distribution and Fate in the affected environments.
- 12.Gas emissions from a forested wetland (I am monitoring) restrict on-site observations to about 45 minutes, even 11 months after Sewage Sludge was open-dumped to measured depths of about 16". The oily nature of the Sludge appears to seal the soil, creating anaerobic conditions for microbial production of Methane, CO2 and a raft of hydrogen and sulfur gasses of unknown chemistry. No person or no agency has ever collected and evaluated the generated gasses.
- 13.There is no such thing as Vector Control, as related to Sewage Sludge disposal in these forests. When delivered and disposed in the forests, the Sludge piles are covered rapidly with swarms of flies, gnats and mosquitoes. Even now, 11 months later, the mosquitoes breed in the Sludge puddles. Curiously, when an insect touches the Sludge runoff or leachate puddles early on, the insects die rapidly and sometimes cover the surface of the Sludge puddles. Only after substantial leaching by rain does the Sludge become less lethal to insects.
- 14.Septage is not Sewage Sludge, and vice versa. I have observed Septage that was disposed adjacent to Sewage Sludge in the same forest. The natural decomposition of Septage is remarkably different from that of Sewage Sludge. Septage is not as toxic as Sewage Sludge, as noted by the insects, worms, nematodes and other biota that either die or survive by exposure or not, over time, as the various and many toxins degrade or are leached away.
- 15.Sewage Sludge, its adverse effects and the Distribution and Fate of Sewage Sludge-borne toxins in the environment over time have not been monitored or evaluated in a forest environment where it is disposed. Reports of monitoring are restricted to controlled test sites or situations that are wholly unrelated to an actual forest Sludge disposal environment; the Distribution and Fate of Sewage Sludge-borne toxins in these forest environments remain unknown.
- 16.Issues such as Agronomic Rate, Monitoring, Vector Control, Flow to Navigable Waters of the US, Hydrology, Analysis, Toxicity Studies, Safety/Toxicology Testing, Distribution and Fate in the Environment, Evaluation of Infectious Agents, Regrowth of Infectious Agents, Disposal in Wetlands, and more, are never considered by any local, county, state or federal agency.
- 17.There are no known functional net benefits to be gained by the Land-Disposal of Toxic Sewage Sludge, other than those that may be realized by lowest-cost and most-convenient disposal, in and of itself. Sewage Sludge could be mined for its valuable phosphates, nitrogen and other nutrients, and it could provide benefit to the soil characteristics by its contributed organic matter, but the overwhelming disadvantages and adverse impacts of Toxic Sewage Sludge on the soil microbiome, and the risk and threat of open dumping of known toxic chemicals and infectious agents in our living environment and soil, plus the documented harm to people, yields a net negative impact on the environment and public health that need no greater witness than the massive Greenhouse Gas Emissions generated by the Land-Disposal of Toxic Sewage Sludge.
- 18.No one knows, "What's in it?" The contents, chemical reactions and biodynamics of Sewage Sludge remain a mystery, and will remain so for the realizable future. The biological and chemical reactions at play in a wastewater stream during and after processing in any Wastewater Treatment Plant (WTP) or Publicly-Owned Treatment Works (POTW) cannot be known, and the chemistry and biology of the materials and products that are disposed subsequently into the environment also remain as unknown and as unknowable.
- 19.The human response to exposure to the products of a WTP or POTW may be best defined by the human experience with chronic disease. We are not willing to wait for the results of long-term studies on the incidence and prevalence of diseases associated with direct or indirect exposure to Sewage Sludge, which will likely reveal no more than what we know already, that Land-Disposed Sewage Sludge causes harm to human health and the environment – end of story.
The ugliness of land-Disposed Sewage Sludge.
Close-up shows the macro-ingredients.
The hillsides and constructed wildlife habitats do not offer sanctuary.
The forests are filled as deeply as possible.
Few life forms survive.
The wetlands suffer most, deep in flowing Toxic Sewage Sludge
Some sludged wetlands just stay that way.
We still do not know, 'What's in it?'
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