Re: Comments on the Amendment of Regulations Pertaining to Biosolids After Transfer from the Department of Health
Dear Mr. Norris:
The Shenandoah Riverkeeper and the Potomac Riverkeeper of Potomac Riverkeeper, Inc. ("Riverkeeper") appreciate the opportunity to provide comment to the State Water Control Board (the “Board”) on the proposed Amendment of Regulations Pertaining to Biosolids After Transfer from the Department of Health (the “Proposed Regulations”). Riverkeeper is a nonprofit group made up of friends, neighbors, and families who want safe drinking water and the ability to fish and swim in the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. These rivers, and the smaller streams and runs that feed them, make up the water supply for almost all of the six million people living in four states and the District of Columbia.
Riverkeeper understands the need for the reuse of sewage sludge and biosolids (collectively referred to herein as “sewage sludge”) as a soil amendment, but such reuse is only beneficial if done responsibly. Section 62.1-44.19:3B of the Virginia Code provides that regulations concerning the use of sewage sludge must ensure that “land application, marketing, and distribution of sewage sludge is performed in a manner that will protect public health and the environment…” and that “the escape, flow, or discharge of sewage sludge into state waters, in a manner that would cause pollution of state waters…shall be prevented.” In other words, the regulations must protect our water supply. As described below in detail, we believe that, in order to meet this standard, certain provisions of the Proposed Regulations must be revised.[1]
Sewage sludge is a highly complex, biologically active mixture of organic material and human pathogens, often containing thousands of industrial chemicals, including dozens of carcinogens, hormone disrupting chemicals, toxic metals, dioxins, radionuclides and other persistent bioaccumulative poisons.[2] These components of sewage sludge can cause significant negative impacts on human health and the environment.[3] For these reasons, the Federal Clean Water Act defines sewage sludge as a pollutant.[4] To ensure that these pollutants do not contaminate the waters of Virginia, it is important to take all steps reasonably necessary to prevent sewage sludge, and its constituent parts, from entering surface water and groundwater. We believe that the most effective and efficient way of doing so is to restrict the locations where sewage sludge may be stored, staged or applied; however, we believe that certain provisions of the proposed Regulations fail in this respect and should be revised prior to finalizing.
1.The Proposed Regulations should prohibit the application, staging and storage of sewage sludge atop karst topography. We were pleased to see that the Board included in the Proposed Regulations a ban on the staging of sewage sludge upon karst topography; however, this ban should be extended to prohibit not only the storage, but the application of sewage sludge upon karst.[5] As you know, a karst topography made up of carbonate rock, such as limestone or dolomite, contains numerous sinkholes and fissures that allow stormwater to discharge directly to aquifers without the filtration and pollutant removal that normally would occur during groundwater infiltration.[6] As a result, pollutants carried in stormwater can rapidly contaminate aquifers underlying highly-soluble limestone and dolomite formations.
When sewage sludge is stored, staged or applied on a karst topography, it can flow nearly unimpeded into the aquifer, contaminating groundwater, and in some cases, surface water with its various and toxic components.[7] The Board clearly recognized this risk when it proposed banning the staging of sewage sludge upon karst, but the Board did not go far enough. If staging sewer sludge is banned due to the potential impact to the groundwater, a position we support, then it only seems logical that the long term storage and subsequent land application of sewer sludge to these sensitive areas also should be banned. There simply is no logical or scientific basis for drawing such a distinction. Storage of large quantities of sewage sludge for extended periods of time in karst areas, which is allowed under the Proposed Regulations, presents an even greater risk to the environment and state waters than does the temporary staging of smaller quantities of such materials, which the Proposed Regulations ban. Similarly, the repeated application of sewage sludge over wide areas of karst topography, which is allowed under the Proposed Regulations, creates a substantial risk that its toxic components will leach into groundwater. We believe that in order to meet its statutory duty to adopt regulations that ensure that land application of sewage sludge is performed in a manner that will protect the environment and prevent the discharge of sewage sludge into state waters, the Board must ban not only staging of sewer sludge, but also the storage and application of sewage sludge, on karst topography.
2.The storage, staging and application of sewage sludge should be banned in areas prone to flooding. The Proposed Regulations prohibit the long-term storage of sewage sludge at a facility that is subject to inundation produced by the 100-year flood/wave action as defined by U.S. Geological Survey or equivalent information (hereinafter referred to as a “100-year floodplain”); however, there is no similar ban on the staging or application of sewage sludge at a facility located in the 100-year floodplain.[8] Again, there is no logical or scientific basis for distinguishing between the storage and application of sewage sludge: the dangers to the environment and state waters associated with storing sewage sludge in the 100-year flood plain are the same as those presented by the staging or application of sewage sludge: flood waters can easily transport sewage sludge, and its various toxic components, from land where it is stored, staged or applied and into state waters, thereby contaminating the environment. As such, we believe that the Proposed Regulations should be revised to ban the storage or application of sewage sludge in any area that is subject to inundation produced by the 100-year flood/wave action as defined by U.S. Geological Survey to ensure that the environment and state waters are protected from releases of sewage sludge caused by significant flooding events that are occurring with increasing frequency.
3.Application of sewage sludge on slopes in excess of six percent should be banned. The Proposed Regulations ban the application on sewage sludge on slopes with grades greater than 15 percent; however, this standard appears arbitrary and does not adequately protect the environment. As the slope increases, the likelihood increases that sewage sludge will run off the slope and either flow into state waters or pool, creating a “hot spot” of sludge in the environment from which toxics may leach. The Environmental Protection Agency, when studying the effects of the land application of sewage sludge, used risk models with slopes of six percent or less.[9] To our knowledge, there have been no scientific studies that have examined the effects on the environment of applying sewage sludge on slopes in excess of six percent. Absent such studies, it would be impossible for the Board to conclude that regulations allowing the application of sewage sludge on slopes in excess of six percent protect the environment, as required by the Virginia Code. As such, the Proposed Regulations should ban the land application of sewage sludge on slopes in excess of six percent.
