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KGET "Dumping Ground" Transcript

2005-04-22T09:35:00.000-07:00

AUDIOTAPED TRANSCRIPTION OF

CHANNEL 17 IN-DEPTH:

DUMPING GROUND

Moderated by: Jim Scott

Transcribed by: Candi Stumbaugh

1 (RECORDING OF JIM SCOTT): 17 In-Depth:

2 Dumping Ground. Treated human waste, sewage, sludge,

3 biosolids -- by any name, it's a nutrient-rich,

4 chemically laden residue, the by-product of the sewage

5 treatment process; and it has to go somewhere.

6 (RECORDING OF MALE SPEAKER): It would be

7 great if this material weren't here; however, it's

8 here.

9 (RECORDING OF JIM SCOTT): Not so long ago,

10 major cities just dumped their sludge into the ocean

11 or the river, but that's against the law now making

12 land application of biosolids one of the few

13 economically viable options remaining.

14 In composting, sewage sludge is mixed with

15 green waste to make a fertilizer for gardens and golf

16 courses. It's provided free of charge in bulk

17 quantities to farmers who spread it to fertilize

18 nonfood crops commonly fed to livestock.

19 Cities in Kern County take care of their own

20 sludge, in the aggregate about 13,000 wet tons a year

21 spread on sewer farms; but more than one million wet

22 tons of sewage sludge are trucked into Kern County

23 each year from cities outside the County, and that's

24 where the battle lines are drawn.

25 (RECORDING OF SENATOR FLOREZ): The message

2

1 is very clear to the generators and to the people who

2 want to bring the sludge here to Kern County: Get

3 out. Stay out.

4 (RECORDING OF MALE SPEAKER): Don't make Kern

5 County the cesspool of California.

6 (RECORDING OF JIM SCOTT): Kern County has

7 become one of the leading importers of sewage sludge

8 in California.

9 Nearly 10 years ago, the county banned the

10 import of all Class A biosolids for land

11 application -- Class A the most highly treated form of

12 municipal waste.

13 Southland sanitation districts are still

14 challenging the biosolid ban in court. Those same

15 sewage districts, however, dumped more than 450,000

16 wet tons of sludge on Kern County farmland every year.

17 Now there's a campaign to move sludge farms

18 off the valley floor for fear that toxins and

19 pathogens contained in the sludge could trickle down

20 to our drinking water supplies underground.

21 (RECORDING OF MALE SPEAKER): And we want to

22 protect our groundwater from getting polluted; that's

23 the main message.

24 And I don't like my neighbor's dog crapping

25 in my yard, and I sure as heck don't like Orange

3
1 County and L.A. coming and crapping in my yard.

2 (RECORDING OF JIM SCOTT): "Not in my

3 backyard" is a common response among many citizens.

4 And soon lawmakers in Sacramento will be asked to

5 consider a law that would ban the export of biosolids

6 from one county to another.

7 (RECORDING OF SENATOR FLOREZ): That means

8 every county takes care of its own stuff.

9 (RECORDING OF JIM SCOTT): So why the fuss?

10 Scientists working for the federal government say

11 public fears over biosolids are unwarranted, that the

12 controversy far exceeds the real threat.

13 But skeptical citizens' groups say the

14 science is murky at best and land application of

15 sludge should be outlawed at least. And the debate

16 rages on over whether we're putting our groundwater

17 and ag economy at risk.

18 Tonight 17 In-depth digs deeper. Policy

19 makers, leading scientists, and local growers from

20 both sides of the field debate the merits of today's

21 sludge disposal practices in Kern County.

22 JIM SCOTT: And good evening. I'm Jim Scott

23 your moderator for tonight's round-table discussion.

24 Our ultimate goal tonight, of course, is to

25 enlighten and inform you about the practices and the

4

1 policies associated with land-applied biosolids here

2 in Kern County. The controversy over land-applied

3 biosolids is something that we've been covering here

4 at 17 News for the better part of a decade. But as I

5 mentioned, the debate rages on.

6 We have assembled a distinguished panel of

7 guests tonight. Let's meet them now, if you will.

8 On my far left is Paul Giboney. He's a

9 member of Kern Food Growers Against Sewage Sludge.

10 Next to him is Dr. Caroline Snyder, president

11 of Citizens for Sludge-Free Land, a

12 New Hampshire-based citizens organization.

13 Dr. Snyder holds a Harvard doctorate. She is

14 professor emeritus at the Rochester Institute of

15 Technology, where she has taught environmental

16 science. She has been researching the science and

17 politics of sludge spreading for the past seven years.

18 And I might mention here, Dr. Snyder is here in

19 Bakersfield tonight on our dime.

20 We wanted to bring in a fresh perspective on

21 the issue of biosolids and -- from someone outside

22 Kern County, and we couldn't have gotten somebody from

23 as far away -- as possibly as New Hampshire, but we

24 got one tonight.

25 So thank you very much for being here,

5
1 Dr. Snyder.

2 DR. SNYDER: Thank you.

3 JIM SCOTT: David Price is here. He is the

4 director of Kern County's Resource Management Agency,

5 which administers what local regulations there are

6 pertaining to land applications of biosolids here in

7 the county.

8 Many of you know our next guest. Ray Watson

9 is County Supervisor for the 4th District.

10 Next to him another familiar face,

11 Dean Florez, Senator from Shafter, who has jumped

12 right into the middle of the sludge controversy of

13 late with recent legislation dealing with biosolids

14 exports, as we've mentioned.

15 Jim Beck is the general manager of the Kern

16 County Water Agency, which would like to see

17 applicators of sludge move off the valley floor.

18 We'll get into that a little bit later.

19 And we are very pleased to have with us

20 tonight one of the people who helped write federal

21 regulations for land-applied biosolids,

22 Dr. Rufus Chaney, an agronomist with the U.S.

23 Department of Agriculture. Here on -- he is here

24 courtesy, I should say, of the California Association

25 of Sanitation Agencies, which paid his airfare out

6

1 here. I understand you're out here on other business,

2 as well. Good to have you, Doctor.

3 And Diane Gilbert is the biosolids regulatory

4 liaison for the Bureau of Sanitation in the city of

5 Los Angeles, which, by the way, is one of the largest

6 exporters of biosolids to Kern County.

7 And off in the wings, we have

8 F. Edwin Hallman. He is an attorney from Atlanta,

9 Georgia, who specializes in environmental law. And he

10 is also in the Southland on business. He was kind

11 enough to drive up here tonight for our round-table

12 discussion, and he will be joining us shortly.

13 I just want to thank you all very much for

14 agreeing to being here, and I look forward to an

15 enlightened and informative discussion.

16 First question: Fact or fiction? Biosolids,

17 land-applied biosolids is safe for humans, for

18 animals, and the environment.

19 Who wants to take it first?

20 DR. SNYDER: I'll take it.

21 JIM SCOTT: Feel free to jump in any time.

22 Dr. Snyder.

23 DR. SNYDER: I would like to take that. It

24 is neither safe nor is it sustainable, nor is the

25 practice based on sound science.

7

1 It is -- sludge is not just treated human

2 waste. That's one of the myths that's being

3 disseminated by EPA and the industry and the lobbying

4 groups. Sludge contains industrial waste.

5 Every industry in the country is allowed to

6 pour their industrial acidous wastewater into a

7 publicly owned treatment plant. That fact is never

8 told to the public. I think that's a very important

9 fact to know.

10 I -- most of the nation's hazardous waste is

11 in the hazardous wastewater that comes from the

12 industries, and it includes many carcinogens,

13 cancer-causing agents. It includes often radioactive

14 waste. It includes almost -- well, it includes

15 thousands of -- of chemical compounds that we can't

16 even test. It would be too expensive to test for

17 those -- for those.

18 It is not a sustainable practice as the

19 industry and EPA claim.

20 JIM SCOTT: What do you mean by that? It is

21 not "sustainable."

22 DR. SNYDER: "Sustainable" means that you can

23 continue to sludge land, agricultural land, forever

24 and ever and ever.

25 The U.S. policy is that once yields are

8

1 reduced to 50 percent, you stop. Well, I don't think

2 that's a tolerable way of dealing with agricultural

3 land.

4 In Europe they have a much more protective

5 policy. They -- they would like -- in European

6 countries they like to maintain their soil forever --

7 I mean, for future generations. And it's not safe

8 because we have hundreds of people who have reported

9 very serious illnesses. And we have -- and they're

10 not just transitory illness; they are serious. They

11 had to be rushed to hospitals.

12 We have deaths that have been linked to the

13 practice. This has not -- this is not only

14 anecdotal -- we have huge piles of anecdotal

15 evidence -- but it's also been documented and been

16 peer-reviewed in medical and scientific literature

17 that, indeed, there is a link between sludge and

18 illnesses.

19 And it's not based on sound science, and you

20 don't need to take my word for that. The National

21 Academy of Sciences in 2002 basically said that the

22 rules, the 503 Rules, which Dr. Chaney helped write,

23 are not based on good science, on resent science, nor

24 is the risk assessment.

25 JIM SCOTT: Let's get a rebuttal from

9
1 Dr. Chaney here, then.

2 DR. CHANEY: I would -- I would disagree,

3 essentially, totally with how she described the safety

4 of biosolid use. The 503 Rule, Congress made a law.

5 EPA was -- developed a regulation to comply with the

6 federal law to protect human -- humans in the

7 environment when biosolids are used on land. They

8 examined the count, the metals in the organic

9 compounds that were believed to comprise the highest

10 risks and -- and developed regulations so that you can

11 apply at least a thousand tons per foot -- either farm

12 it for hundreds of years; and the implication, based

13 on all the science, is we can farm it forever. We say

14 unequivocally it's a sustainable practice because we

15 have achieved industrial-free treatment.

16 Her concern about all these compounds going

17 down the sewer -- remember the consumer products are

18 some of these compounds that some people make the big

19 deal about: Personal cosmetics and other things.

20 Human exposure is every day.

21 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

22 DR. CHANEY: Well, the -- the -- the -- the

23 safety -- that is, the long-term safety, I think is

24 overwhelmingly shown by the long-term experiments that

25 have been conducted.

10

1 It's -- it's frustrating to hear people make

2 some of those claims, in particular, the ones that --

3 about people have been harmed.

4 I would agree that people have been harmed

5 whose outside cooking was interfered with by malodor,

6 by poorly managed biosolids. But the EPA has a

7 specific response to the -- what was it? -- the

8 consumer -- I can't remember the name of the -- the --

9 they filed a petition against --

10 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

11 DR. CHANEY: -- EPA based on -- on some

12 particular consumer rule, and EPA responded, in

13 detail, every claim of a person supposed to have died

14 from biosolids and showed that if you go to the state

15 health department, the state in question, and ask,

16 they made a very thorough study and could find no

17 relationship with biosolids.

18 DR. SNYDER: But that --

19 JIM SCOTT: Hasn't the argument been made,

20 though, that the EPA does not know how people will

21 react to these substances because no tests have been

22 done to many of the substances that aren't tested for

23 in sewage sludge and that there is no empirical data

24 on the thousands of different chemicals that are

25 contained in sludge -- pretreated or otherwise?

11

1 DR. CHANEY: I don't know -- I don't know how

2 much of that I can -- can respond to. It's clear that

3 the -- the -- the Toxins Substances Control Act --

4 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh --

5 DR. CHANEY: -- any -- any new chemicals for

6 the last 15 to 20 years have to have had testing to

7 make sure that they're not going to be harmful to the

8 workers. Remember that the people that use these

9 chemicals are much more highly exposed, and very few

10 of them actually enter into plants.

11 JIM SCOTT: Now, I -- I believe you wanted to

12 respond.

13 DR. SNYDER: I -- I really do need to because

14 Dr. Chaney made one statement that simply is not true.

15 He claims that EPA has thoroughly investigated the

16 reported health incidents and claim that they did not

17 exist. This is absolutely not true, and I want to

18 give an example. The Tony Behun case, the young boy

19 that -- that biked through a -- a sludge field. There

20 were no fences, no signs. They thought it was mud.

21 He got a very, very serious infection, high fever,

22 died a week later. The mother had no idea what it

23 was. Later found out it probably was sludge. She

24 tried to get answers --

25 JIM SCOTT: You say -- you say "publicly" --

12
1 "probably."

2 What did the autopsy show?

3 DR. SNYDER: I don't think there was an

4 autopsy in this case because it was after the fact

5 that she realized that there were other cases, deaths

6 and serious illnesses, from sludge.

7 The Department -- the Pennsylvania Department

8 of the EPA completely covered up that incident, denied

9 sludge was on the field; claimed the boy was killed by

10 a bee sting; claimed that there was a thorough

11 investigation of the health department. All of those

12 claims were totally false.

13 And yet when the EPA invest- -- when the

14 National Academy of Sciences investigated that case,

15 Bob Bastion from EPA testified in front of that panel

16 saying there was a thorough investigation of that

17 death, and the health department decided there was no

18 link between sludge and the boy's illness. That is

19 one mis- -- piece of misinformation that's passed from

20 the Department of Environmental Protection of

21 Pennsylvania to the National Academy of Sciences.

22 The EPA and industry have worked closely

23 together for the last 10 years to cover up all the

24 problems that have emerged, whether it's cattle

25 deaths, whether it's human illnesses, whether it's

13

1 groundwater pollution. They have the data. They will

2 not release it. We, through a forward request,

3 asked --

4 JIM SCOTT: Let me -- let's just stop you

5 there.

6 DR. SNYDER: Yes.

7 JIM SCOTT: -- because you did accuse the EPA

8 of coverup here.

9 DR. SNYDER: Yes.

10 JIM SCOTT: Are -- are you including the USDA

11 as -- in part of that conspiracy to cover up these

12 facts?

13 DR. SNYDER: Dr. Chaney's Department of

14 Agricultural -- Dr. Chaney was one of the authors of

15 the 503 Rules --

16 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

17 DR. SNYDER: -- I obviously don't know how

18 much he, himself, is involved in that. But I'm

19 talking --

20 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

21 DR. SNYDER: -- mostly about the EPA managers

22 -- Al Ruben, Walker --

23 JIM SCOTT: Okay. Dr. --

24 DR. SNYDER: -- and also --

25 JIM SCOTT: Now, Dr. Chaney, you work closely

14

1 with the EPA.

2 What do you -- how -- what is your response

3 to the accusation or the allegation that there's been

4 a coverup here?

5 DR. CHANEY: When the head of the EPA has his

6 legal staff work with the state health department in

7 Pennsylvania and New Hampshire and several of the

8 other places where -- where local issues arose and

9 they issue a formal statement from the head of EPA,

10 I -- I have -- I don't have any data that conflict

11 with what they say.

12 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

13 DR. CHANEY: Even the -- it was supposedly,

14 in the end, believed that he had staph aureus, and

15 there's even been research on -- on staph aureus

16 distribution of biosolids. And after -- during

17 application -- even -- even a Class D treatment, there

18 was no longer any infectious doses of staph aureus in

19 biosolids. So --

20 JIM SCOTT: Which --

21 DR. CHANEY: So --

22 JIM SCOTT: Yeah, go ahead.

23 DR. CHANEY: So I don't -- lacking any

24 evidence --

25 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

15

1 DR. CHANEY: -- that it is happened -- really

2 happening, but we have people who are sure that the

3 kid died from this and no evidence to say -- to base

4 that claim upon other than their concern about

5 biosolids.

6 JIM SCOTT: We're going to get back into

7 the -- excuse me -- the science of all this. But I

8 just want -- want to just shift the discussion here.

9 Let's face it. This is a dirty business,

10 handling biosolids. The stuff has got to go

11 somewhere. The problem is nobody wants it in their

12 backyard. And the sludge generators have accused the

13 media, and I've been accused personally, 17 News in

14 general, and -- and the media in general, of -- of

15 hyping this opposition to sewage sludge and pitting

16 region against region in a -- in a rather

17 sensationalist fashion.

18 So we'll take the criticism, but I'm not sure

19 that it's fair because we report what the people here

20 in our community are saying.

21 Supervisor Watson, you've been in the

22 tug-o-war, and you've been in the trenches on this

23 thing for a number of years now.

24 Do you believe, in your opinion, that the

25 media has blown this controversy out of proportion?

16

1 SUPERVISOR WATSON: I'm not going to sit here

2 and criticize the media. I -- I do think that more

3 attention should be given to the details behind the

4 issue.

5 I don't think that the -- the problem is

6 simply identified, and I certainly don't believe that

7 the answers to the problem are simple. I think that

8 they have to be well thought out and they have to be

9 very comprehensive. And I don't think that can be

10 done even in an hour program.

11 I think there is a whole lot of information

12 out there, and a lot of things that need to be

13 considered in the process.

14 JIM SCOTT: What -- what specifically --

15 where are we missing the boat -- the media?

16 SUPERVISOR WATSON: I think it's lack of

17 attention to -- to time to it, and I would also say

18 that when the media takes on a story from one side,

19 they should, at the same time, give the same amount of

20 time and consideration and thought to the opposition

21 before they print or -- or publish a story, because I

22 think the public deserves to know both sides, rather

23 than having a sensationalist headline or sensational

24 video --

25 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

17

1 SUPERVISOR WATSON: -- that -- that gives an

2 inflection about something that may or may not be

3 true.

4 And to tell you the truth, I'm not a

5 scientist, and I'm not an attorney. I don't know

6 what's true and what's not. We have to rely on the

7 scientists and the legal profession to tell us what's

8 real and what's not.

9 JIM SCOTT: Senator Florez, you've been

10 accused of stirring the stew pot --

11 SENATOR FLOREZ: Well, I --

12 JIM SCOTT: -- if you will, and perhaps being

13 part of the -- of the hype.

14 Where do you come down on this?

15 SENATOR FLOREZ: Well, I think what

16 Supervisor Watson said is a very scary thing. And

17 we're not sure. We're not really clear. But we ought

18 not make decisions, then to the Board of Supervisors

19 until we get the science. I think -- you know, as

20 Dr. Chaney said, I mean, quite frankly, I don't think

21 we should wait for kids to get cancer, because we

22 think, in essence, that there might be things in this

23 sludge that might ultimately cause that.

24 The reality is that we're supposed to be

25 looking out for the taxpayers. We're supposed to be

18

1 looking out early for risk. And I think with lacking

2 the science has just been said you know, the best

3 thing to do is play on the side of safety. If we're

4 not clear what's in the sludge, if no one can tell us

5 in this panel tonight -- and I would really like the

6 question answered whether or not every pathogen is

7 taken out of this stuff, then I think we ought to

8 simply say that every county should take care of their

9 own stuff and not export their problem to another

10 county.

11 And, quite frankly, if it was so safe, why

12 are they exporting it to the next county? Why aren't

13 they land-applying it in their own area?

14 And, quite frankly, the debate came up

15 because of a very simple question, and that is

16 everyone out there needs to ask themselves: What

17 benefit does Kern County get for taking the sludge?

18 What are we getting --

19 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

20 SENATOR FLOREZ: -- for taking all of this

21 sludge from L.A. city, for example?

22 JIM SCOTT: Let me ask David Price, then.

23 Your agency -- under your agency, under the umbrella

24 of the Resource Management Agency is the Environmental

25 Health Agency their offices, I understand, are charged

19

1 with inspecting biosludge that's coming up here from

2 the Southland.

3 Tell me, tell our viewers. What is your

4 responsibility with respect to knowing what is in this

5 sludge when it arrives here?

6 MR. PRICE: Oh, with respect to the role of

7 the Agency, we're involved in the development of the

8 ordinance and the ongoing changes that might be

9 employed. In fact, the Board of Supervisors has on

10 four different occasions either enacted ordinances or

11 strengthened ordinances beyond what existed.

12 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

13 MR. PRICE: At one time we had what was

14 claimed to be over a million wet tons land-applied in

15 Kern County --

16 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

17 MR. PRICE: -- annually.

18 In 19- -- that amount has dropped to where in

19 19- -- in 2004, we had 450,000 tons land-applied.

20 JIM SCOTT: By last count we have about a

21 million wet tons coming in when you include the sludge

22 that's going to composting.

23 MR. PRICE: But a lot of that is exported, as

24 well. And, in fact, we have programs and efforts

25 underway to actually minimize land activity in the

20

1 future.

2 And we're really quite excited about the

3 direction that some of those are taking.

4 JIM SCOTT: Okay.

5 MR. PRICE: But -- but back to the other

6 point, we had 54,000 acres that were permitted by the

7 Regional Water Quality Control Boards -- both Mojave

8 and the Central Valley Boards -- for land-application

9 activities. Because of the stringent ordinances that

10 the Board of Supervisors has enacted and the

11 aggressive enforcement from our department, we now

12 have, in last year, a little over 8,000 acres that had

13 land-application activity take place.

14 JIM SCOTT: What do you mean by "aggressive

15 enforcement," though?

16 MR. PRICE: Because we have a monitoring

17 program and an inspection program that's in place and

18 has been since we enacted the original interim urgency

19 ordinance.

20 JIM SCOTT: How does that work?

21 MR. PRICE: Well, how it works is that

22 permittees are required to obtain an annual permit --

23 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

24 MR. PRICE: -- from the Department in order

25 to land-apply biosolids. That's a permit that can be

21

1 renewed each year.

2 We analyze the track record from the

3 applicators as well as the farmers to ensure that it

4 would be appropriate to renew that permit.

5 JIM SCOTT: And -- and in terms of complying

6 with the ordinance and making sure that the sludge is

7 safe and pathogen free and so forth, how do you arrive

8 at that conclusion that they are in compliance on an

9 independent basis?

10 MR. PRICE: One of the amendments that we

11 placed in the last ordinance go-round, if you will,

12 was a requirement that independent third parties not

13 associated with the generators be the individuals

14 charged with performing the sampling --

15 JIM SCOTT: And who is that? In terms of

16 Kern County, do we have an independent sampling? Do

17 we take samples ourselves? Does your department take

18 samples?

19 MR. PRICE: Our -- we -- the -- it's a

20 two-prong process. The generators are required by law

21 to do a certain amount of sampling and provide those

22 reports to us.

23 In addition to that, we require that there be

24 independent people not associated with the generators

25 that also sample and then take those to certified

22

1 laboratories.

2 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

3 MR. PRICE: Those results come to us, we

4 analyze those results, and then we also do on-site

5 field inspections, as well.

6 JIM SCOTT: Okay. How many times in the

7 last -- how many times a year do your -- does your

8 department do on-site inspections? How many times in

9 2004 did your inspectors go to, say, Green Acres or

10 Honey Bucket Farms?

11 MR. PRICE: Typically, they would go out at

12 least on a quarterly basis, and sometimes there may be

13 complaints from the adjoining area. There may be a

14 misunderstanding as to whether or not there was a

15 nuisance provided from some source --

16 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

17 MR. PRICE: -- whether it's a farmer's

18 compost pile, or whether it's a biosolids

19 land-application facility.

20 We had a complaint from a school not too long

21 ago claiming --

22 JIM SCOTT: So these are nuisance complaints,

23 basically --

24 MR. PRICE: -- that it was from biosolids.

25 It was from their own compost --

23

1 JIM SCOTT: These are nuisance complaints --

2 MR. PRICE: It was right at their own school.

3 JIM SCOTT: -- nuisance complaints, as it

4 were.

5 MR. PRICE: And then we would investigate

6 those, as well. So actually we could be out on sites

7 much more frequently than just quarterly.

8 JIM SCOTT: Does the County take actual

9 physical samples of sludge coming into the

10 land-application areas?

11 MR. PRICE: We have that authority to do it.

12 JIM SCOTT: Do you do it?

13 MR. PRICE: Typically, we don't.

14 JIM SCOTT: And why is that?

15 MR. PRICE: We have a high degree of

16 confidence in the reports that are filed through U.S.

17 EPA and the Regional Water Quality Control Boards --

18 JIM SCOTT: Okay.

19 MR. PRICE: -- that come to us.

20 And then, of course, we get the certified

21 results from the laboratories.

22 JIM SCOTT: And -- and who pays --

23 MR. PRICE: We use that as an -- as an

24 enforcement mechanism and have that authority to do

25 it.

24

1 JIM SCOTT: Who -- who pays the laboratories,

2 the third-party or the independent laboratories, for

3 doing the testing? Does the Sanitation District pay,

4 or does the County pay, or who pays them?

5 MR. PRICE: Typically, through the permit

6 fee, we get on $8,000 annual permit fee from the

7 permittees. And our experience has been that that

8 amount has been adequate to cover our costs.

9 Now, as we look prospectively for additional

10 testing, that may come down the pike; as additional

11 concerns become element -- evident, we may well be

12 looking at increasing that permit fee, then, to cover

13 any additional costs.

14 JIM SCOTT: So the cost of the testing is

15 covered by the permit fee? Did I understand you

16 correctly?

17 MR. PRICE: Yes. The testing that we require

18 and that we do. Other tests are provided, of course,

19 by the generators themselves because --

20 JIM SCOTT: Let me ask --

21 MR. PRICE: -- the EPA and the others require

22 testing as well, and those are performed by the

23 generators.

24 JIM SCOTT: Diane Gilbert, who does your

25 testing?

25

1 MS. GILBERT: We have a certified laboratory

2 where we have a biologist and chemist that does our

3 test on-site.

4 JIM SCOTT: An independent laboratory?

5 MS. GILBERT: No. It's -- it's the City of

6 L.A.

7 JIM SCOTT: Okay. It's your laboratory, and

8 you do tests as the shipments leave re- --

9 MS. GILBERT: We do tests throughout the

10 whole process.

11 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

12 MS. GILBERT: In the -- in the treatment

13 process, itself, we do testing before it leaves the

14 plant; we do testing as it leaves in the truck; and

15 then we do testing along with the County when they do

16 their independent sampling. We do a split sample, as

17 well.

18 JIM SCOTT: The old -- the old hacknied

19 analogy: The fox watching the chicken coop comes --

20 MS. GILBERT: Uh-huh.

21 JIM SCOTT: -- to mind here.

22 What do you say to skeptics who say, "How --"

23 "How are those results to be trusted when you're

24 actually paying and there's a pressing need to move

25 this stuff each and every day?" It's not like it goes

26

1 away after one day. It's a day in and day out, 24/7

2 kind of thing.

3 MS. GILBERT: We have a certified lab that's

4 certified by the State; so we have a certification for

5 our laboratory personnel to do that. So it's not like

6 it's a City of Los Angeles person to do this. These

7 are actually chemists and biologists that are

8 certified per the State in order to perform these

9 tests. And also in the requirements, there's also a

10 penalty of perjury that if you're doing anything to

11 doctor the results or if you're messing with any of

12 the test results, that you can go to jail for that.

13 So we take that very seriously in analyzing our

14 results. And no one handles laboratory results

15 analysis but our laboratory personnel.

16 JIM SCOTT: Have you ever had an incidence in

17 your -- in your experience where the lab results came

18 in and you had a batch of sludge that didn't meet

19 requirements, that you had to send back to the

20 treatment process?

21 MS. GILBERT: Not specifically with

22 biosolids. Sometimes we have a process upset that we

23 would catch, because we monitor the daily process

24 daily and we're doing testing to make sure that we're

25 meeting certain requirements.

27

1 So within the process, itself, we may do

2 different things because we see numbers may be high or

3 low.

4 JIM SCOTT: Okay.

5 MS. GILBERT: But not sending it out of the

6 door, no.

7 JIM SCOTT: While I have you here, is there a

8 message you want our viewers to hear tonight, because

9 you have a PR problem up here in Kern County, and the

10 media isn't helping you any.

11 What would you like our viewers to hear

12 tonight?

13 MS. GILBERT: Well, first of all, I would

14 like to say that the City of Los Angeles has been

15 land-applying biosolids for the last 10 years in Kern

16 County.

17 We have worked through a lot of issues with

18 the County. We are available to the local citizens in

19 the area; have addressed a lot of their concerns by

20 moving to a higher quality of biosolids. We work with

21 the County and the ordinance process, and we are

22 available to the County through our hot line.

23 We have a 24-hour hot line that's available,

24 and also we have a website. And our local residents

25 that's adjacent to our property, know -- know that

28

1 we're there and they have availability of contacting

2 us.

3 Also, we would like you to know that we are

4 not dumping biosolids. You know, the key word is

5 "dumping." And dumping to me is where you have a pile

6 of biosolids and it sits there and nothing is done

7 with it. And that's not the practice that the City

8 currently does. We receive the biosolids on the site,

9 and we incorporate it into the soil within six days of

10 being there.

11 So you'll never go into Green Acres and see

12 piles of biosolids on the site, that it actually is

13 being applied as a fertilizer that we're using

14 constantly, daily to produce crops.

15 JIM SCOTT: Okay. Very good.

16 Now, the opposition to sludge here in Kern

17 County is really rooted in agriculture, and

18 Paul Giboney, Kern Food Growers Against Sewage Sludge,

19 why don't you want this stuff here, if it's as safe as

20 they say it is?

21 MR. GIBONEY: It's not as safe as they say it

22 is. It's estimated that there is over 100,000

23 different industrial chemicals in sludge. Toxics

24 Release Inventory requires the reporting of the

25 disposable -- disposal of over 650 different chemicals

29

1 that go into Southern California treatment plants.

2 And in the year 2000, there were over 13

3 million pounds of toxics, which is just the tip of the

4 iceberg, that were disposed of in the POTWs; and a lot

5 of that ended up here in Kern County over our

6 groundwater and on our farmland.

7 In fact, the State of California -- the State

8 Water Resources Control Board in their EIR had

9 remarked, had written in there that, quote, "There was

10 a willingness to accept some health risks to support

11 the reuse of the treated sewage sludge." So here you

12 have the very regulatory agency that is supposed to be

13 protecting us acknowledging that there is some degree

14 of risk associated with it.

15 And, in fact, in Chicago there was a -- a

16 Water Environment Federation, which is the

17 organization that a lot of these sanitation districts

18 belong to, stated, quote, "We have over 300 platers in

19 Chicago, electroplaters, that discharge lead, cadmium,

20 cyanide. We have plastic manufacturers that discharge

21 lots of phenols. We don't have any limits on phenols

22 in our sewers.

23 In the state of California, in the -- the

24 Board said no test results for SOCs are available in

25 the CASA survey because the 503 Regulations do not

30

1 require testing or regulation of SOCs.

2 So when you look at all these different

3 chemicals that are in sludge and then consider the

4 breakdown products, the metabolites, the interactions

5 along with pathogens, the heavy metals, we're really

6 dealing with a witch's brew here, which is not at all

7 what we want to see here in Kern County.

8 JIM SCOTT: But it's not applied to food

9 crops. It's not -- it's not applied to food crops

10 that are consumed by humans. It's -- they're applied

11 to feedstock crops.

12 MR. GIBONEY: It is -- this is true.

13 However, there are plant-backed restrictions, and it

14 could -- you know, I don't recall if it's three or

15 five years. Dr. Chaney can specify that, but many of

16 these -- these products will remain in the soil for --

17 for years and years, perhaps hundreds of years.

18 And at the same time, they're at risk to

19 being leached into the groundwater because it's part

20 of the disposal operation, which is going on at the

21 Green Acres. And disposal operation is what it is

22 when you're applying 30- to 50-tons per acre of

23 anything and you're applying water to it, there is the

24 very real potential of carrying those pollutants,

25 those contaminants into the groundwater below.

31

1 And in regards to your -- your concern about

2 food crops, yes, this is feed that's being grown, and

3 then you're turning around and feeding it to animals.

4 And many of the products -- one of the -- many of the

5 things that we're concerned about in sludge, some of

6 the synthetic organic chemicals are bioaccumulated.

7 And as a matter of fact, recently there's

8 been work that has determined that some of the

9 constituents of fire retardants are ending -- ending

10 up in food supply and in human tissues.

11 And it is -- scientists are stating that they

12 believe that the cause of this is from -- origin- --

13 originating from sludge.

14 And many of these synthetic organic chemicals

15 have been detected in sludge; and, furthermore,

16 there's been several groundwater sites across the U.S.

17 that the U.S. Geological survey has detected many of

18 the organic waste contaminants in that groundwater.

19 So, in addition, what we have here is --

20 what's coming out of Southern California is not a

21 fert- -- wasn't designed as a fertilizer. It's a

22 disposal vehicle that incidentally happens to have a

23 little bit of nitrogen, a little bit of nutrients, but

24 the rest of it are products that we don't have any

25 control or any understanding of the prevent- --

32

1 present a very valid risk to our economy.

2 JIM SCOTT: All right. Now, let me ask you

3 Jim Beck. Because you would like to see the

4 applicators moved off the Valley floor and away from

5 the groundwater. Your fear is that this sludge could

6 eventual trickle down into our drinking water supply.

7 Do you share the same concerns? I know you have

8 scientific background by education. Why the reasoning

9 here? Is this just to err on the side of caution?

10 What?

11 MR. BECK: Well, as -- as your viewers got to

12 see today, there's quite a difference of opinion in

13 the scientific community regarding the safety of

14 biosolids. And my background is water quality. Have

15 responsibility for overseeing the treatment plant that

16 serves much of the city of Bakersfield population.

17 We're very concerned about water quality

18 impacts related to biosolids and how it may impact

19 groundwater resources in Kern County. And when we see

20 such a disparate view on this issue among the

21 scientific community, where you have good science on

22 both sides preparing -- presenting very good

23 arguments, we believe that the prudent measure is to

24 be safe.

25 We are looking at options that provide us

33

1 ways to provide opportunities for the generators to

2 have their needs met, while not impacting our way of

3 life or putting our -- our groundwater resources in

4 jeopardy.

5 Groundwater is a life blood of Kern County.

6 If it's impacted, it means our way of life in Kern

7 County's going to be very different. There is going

8 to be a significant cost to the way our drinking water

9 supply is managed; it would be different. Our ag and

10 industrial users will also see significant impacts if

11 our groundwater base is impacted.

12 JIM SCOTT: Now, I -- I would like you to

13 release the news tonight that you brokered a deal to

14 relocate the land applicators, you know, for the sake

15 of our show. But I guess you probably don't have that

16 news release ready yet, do you?

17 MR. BECK: No, we don't. And it was with

18 that concern that we -- we sought to find a solution

19 to this problem. And through the direction of our

20 board of directors, agency staff working with some of

21 the County staff, working with some of our local

22 growers also partnering with areas that had banked

23 water in Kern County, like Metropolitan Water

24 District, we were looking at solutions that would make

25 sense -- a good business sense for the generators

34
1 while moving the current generators --

2 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

3 MR. BECK: -- outside the groundwater basin.

4 We sought proposals from landowners or companies that

5 would be able to relocate the three existing

6 generating sites or biosolid application sites in Kern

7 County to outside the groundwater basin.

8 JIM SCOTT: Where are we today?

9 MR. BECK: Where we're at today is we

10 received response -- six responses to those propose --

11 proposals. Three of those proposals we view as very

12 viable and worth additional study and consideration.

13 We formed a technical review committee that

14 consisted of members of some of our ag districts. We

15 had the Ag Commissioner on that committee, as well, to

16 look at the pluses and minuses of the three viable

17 proposals.

18 We also briefed the Board of Supervisors

19 technical committee, or ad hoc committee on that, to

20 give them an update on those proposals. And now we're

21 in the process of scheduling meetings with the

22 generators, and we -- we hope to sit down and work out

23 a business deal that will get them outside the

24 groundwater basin into areas where -- more appropriate

25 for that.

35

1 Fortunately, the proposals that we have

2 received also have the additional benefit of moving

3 those application sites outside of Kern County, which

4 is even better for -- for us in Kern County.

5 JIM SCOTT: Thank you, Jim Beck, for that

6 update.

7 At the same time, Dean Florez, you have this

8 bill to ban the exporting of biosolids from county --

9 one county to another.

10 What is the rationale behind this bill? Some

11 people, even local people here who haven't complained

12 to you officially, say this is not a reasonable bill.

13 What is your rationale behind this?

14 SENATOR FLOREZ: Well, I would probably tell

15 you -- them and I would tell your viewers out there

16 that the goal of it is just a very simple concept.

17 Every county ought to take its fair share of

18 the thing that it itself creates; and if we do it with

19 hazardous waste, we ought to do it with biosolids, a

20 very simple principle in the state of California. And

21 we ought not move a problem from one county to the

22 other.

23 And I can tell you right now that the issue

24 in the legislature will be whether or not we want to

25 make a policy decision on that. I would much rather

36

1 the Board of Supervisors make that local decision

2 here. I think they have the ability to. Our leg

3 counsel tells us they can.

4 And ultimately if that is the case, then I

5 think the legislation would have served its purpose.

6 And that is to bring this debate to the forefront.

7 And quite frankly, all of the cities that continue to

8 bring sludge to Kern County -- and you can call it all

9 the pretty names you want -- Green Acres, Honey

10 Bucket, you name it. The people of Kern County are

11 smarter than that. They know that when you get

12 something for free, they know that when you send it to

13 pretty places like Honey Bucket in Green Acres and, in

14 essence, taking all you can, there is something wrong

15 with it.

16 And quite frankly, I think -- let me just add

17 one point that -- Ms. Gilbert, you mentioned that L.A.

18 city has a credibility problem, a PR problem in Kern

19 County for a reason. She just told you a moment ago

20 that they support having the highest quality sludge

21 here in Kern County. Yet, on the other hand, they're

22 suing us --

23 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

24 SENATOR FLOREZ: -- they're suing Kern County

25 to take the worst of sludge, Class B.

37

1 JIM SCOTT: And I assume that -- Diane

2 Gilbert, you are working on opposition --

3 SENATOR FLOREZ: How -- how do you -- how do

4 you say both? I mean, I don't know how you do that.

5 JIM SCOTT: I assume you're working -- in

6 fact, I read in your newsletter, I think, that you are

7 charged with channeling opposition to this bill? Can

8 you confirm that?

9 MS. GILBERT: No. I'm not charged with

10 channeling opposition to this bill. That would be a

11 decision made by our mayor on this bill. We are not

12 --

13 JIM SCOTT: What do you think of this bill?

14 MS. GILBERT: Well, first of all, I think

15 that the bill would limit the ability for the whole

16 state of California in -- in putting a ban on export

17 and import into counties.

18 We all depend upon each other as a -- as a

19 state. We import and export various different things.

20 We manage a lot of waste that's generated in Kern

21 County and L.A. County

22 SENATOR FLOREZ: How much does L.A. import?

23 JIM SCOTT: How much -- how much biosolids --

24 SENATOR FLOREZ: Since we are all sharing,

25 how much does L.A. import?

38

1 JIM SCOTT: Do you import any biosludge?

2 MS. GILBERT: In -- in our own county, we use

3 about 6 percent of our biosolids in our county.

4 JIM SCOTT: You do?

5 SENATOR FLOREZ: How much do they import?

6 MALE SPEAKER: They import heat-dried

7 biosolids from other jurisdictions that are commercial

8 products.

9 JIM SCOTT: In com- -- in the form of compost

10 you're saying?

11 MS. GILBERT: Yes.

12 MALE SPEAKER: Yes. Also heat-dried

13 fertilizer.

14 MS. GILBERT: Compost, also pellets.

15 And we feel that what this would say is that

16 now State legislation could come up for all --

17 importing and exporting of all types of different

18 wastes.

19 And we don't consider biosolids a waste; we

20 consider biosolids a natural resource, that it would

21 just help the environment do what it normally would

22 do. So we don't consider biosolids in the category of

23 waste and managing your own waste in your county.

24 We also think that this bill could go far

25 reaching -- beyond that because now you're dealing

39

1 with -- now there's -- another legislation came up

2 that says that you can't do hazardous, that you have

3 to treat all your medical waste, that you have treat

4 all your oil sludges.

5 So we feel that this bill does not really

6 address the issue when you talk about import/export of

7 a reasonable product.

8 JIM SCOTT: And -- and, Supervisor Watson, it

9 sounds like the Senator would like you to do the heavy

10 lifting on this one.

11 Where do you come down on this bill?

12 SUPERVISOR WATSON: Well, we've been told

13 many, many times, in spite of what this legislative

14 counsel says, that it's against the -- the United

15 States Constitution Commerce clause for us to prohibit

16 the importation of biosolids or to prohibit the

17 spreading of biosolids unless we eliminate all of our

18 own, as well.

19 And, you know, maybe we need to get the two

20 lawyers together to determine what the real answer is,

21 but I've asked that question many times, and I've been

22 told that we do not have the legal authority to do

23 that. That's why I've been working with Mr. Beck and

24 people at the Kern County Water Agency for 18 months

25 encouraging the process of a negotiated settlement

40

1 with Los Angeles. Los Angeles has been very

2 cooperative in it.

3 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

4 SUPERVISOR WATSON: And they've told -- told

5 us that they want to be good citizens. Now, we'll

6 find out pretty soon, when they evaluate those

7 proposals, whether or not they want to be good

8 citizens.

9 But I think we can get the problem solved

10 much faster by negotiating this and getting it done

11 quickly.

12 If we were to try to legislate or put an

13 ordinance in prohibiting the spreading of biosolids or

14 the importation of bisol- -- biosolids, I'm confident

15 that they would get an immediate injunction. We would

16 be in court for years. We would be in appeals for

17 years, and I'm told that we would probably lose. And

18 that gets us nowhere.

19 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

20 SUPERVISOR WATSON: I think we get somewhere

21 by sitting down with people and working out solutions

22 in a logical manner --

23 JIM SCOTT: Let me say -- Supervisor, let

24 me -- let me move over. I see Dr. Snyder over here

25 chomping at the bit.

41

1 DR. SNYDER: No. No. It's just so tragic

2 that you need to worry about being -- about lawsuits

3 and being sued when this material is not a resource.

4 It is a contaminated, complex, unpredictable waste

5 material.

6 It is so complex that the National Academy of

7 Sciences has said that we can -- even if we knew what

8 was in there, and we don't because there is so much --

9 even if we knew every one of those contaminants, we

10 still could not do a risk assessment.

11 If something -- how can you call something

12 like that beneficial? How can you call it recycling

13 when you are transferring industrial chemicals from

14 large cities to rural countrysides, in some places

15 very poor neighborhoods where farmers cannot fight

16 back. They don't have the legal clout. Rural areas

17 don't have the political clout --

18 JIM SCOTT: Obviously, you don't like this

19 stuff.

20 DR. SNYDER: -- so the only -- no -- the real

21 problem --

22 JIM SCOTT: I am curious. What is your

23 solution?

24 DR. SNYDER: -- the real problem is a total

25 overhaul of the 503s. The EPA has deceived people,

42
1 has worked closely together in the last 10 years with

2 the very agency they're -- with the industry they're

3 supposed to regulate. The regulator has worked with

4 the regulator -- the industry that's supposed to

5 control instead of distancing themselves from the

6 first problems occurred. After the 503s were put into

7 place, EPA became closer and closer with the waste

8 industry.

9 JIM SCOTT: Okay.

10 DR. SNYDER: And that is simply unacceptable,

11 and it needs to be changed from the top so that these

12 debates that have to happen in -- in -- in counties

13 like Kern don't even become --

14 JIM SCOTT: Okay. I've gone way past my

15 break.

16 Dr. Chaney, we're going to get to you.

17 DR. CHANEY: I just -- I want to say that --

18 JIM SCOTT: Okay. Go ahead.

19 DR. CHANEY: -- the report that she just

20 quoted, in its summary, has a statement, an

21 overarching finding, that no matter what she said, we

22 don't have any evidence of an adverse effect of

23 biosolids used under the -- the 503 Rule. They don't

24 have adverse effects. Now, it's easy to point out all

25 these things. But showing leaching, it just hasn't

43
1 happened. I'm sorry.

2 JIM SCOTT: Okay. All right. We're going

3 to -- I've got to take a break.

4 MALE SPEAKER: Now, see, Jim, that's the

5 problem we have from a regulatory perspective because

6 the U.S EPA --

7 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

8 MALE SPEAKER: -- has said that this is a

9 practice that does not create a hazard. The National

10 Institute of Health report has said that there's no

11 proof that it creates a hazard. The State of

12 California through the State Water Resources Control

13 Board, just last July, over the objections of Kern

14 County, which filed suit against their Environmental

15 Impact Report, recertified an Environmental Impact

16 Report that said counties throughout California can

17 land-apply Class B.

18 Kern County has a much more stringent

19 ordinance than the State of California now says is

20 safe to land-apply.

21 JIM SCOTT: Okay.

22 MALE SPEAKER: So we have to be concerned

23 about suits.

24 JIM SCOTT: And it's good that you got the

25 last word in before break because you're going to have

44

1 to give up your seat. We're going to bring in

2 Ed Hallman. All right? We'll be back. 17 In-Depth:

3 Dumping Ground continues right after this.

4 (Break taken.)

5 JIM SCOTT: And welcome back to 17 In-Depth:

6 Dumping Ground. Tonight we're discussing the policies

7 and practices of applying biosolids to land here in

8 Kern County.

9 Like to welcome to the panel now

10 F. Edwin Hallman. He's an attorney from Atlanta,

11 Georgia, who recently won a jury verdict on behalf of

12 a farming family in Augusta, Georgia, whose dairy

13 herd -- many cows died after eating feed grown with

14 biosolids; is that correct?

15 Can you tell us -- first of all, welcome,

16 Mr. Hallman. Thank you for being here.

17 What exactly happened in Augusta, Georgia?

18 I'm -- I'm short on time; so give us the thumbnail

19 sketch.

20 MR. HALLMAN: Before I say that, I do want to

21 say that Inspector General for the Environmental

22 Protection Agency has said that sewage sludge is not

23 proven to be safe.

24 The Assistant Administrator of the EPA, who's

25 higher than all these other people that say it's safe,

45

1 has said we cannot verify whether it's safe or not.

2 My experience in Augusta has national

3 implications because, basically, what we have here is

4 snake oil and nothing else.

5 We have an illusion of safety when it doesn't

6 exist. We had hazardous waste being put out on lands

7 in the form of sewage sludge, and it's called

8 biosolids in some sort of magic formula.

9 Augusta showed the following: Augusta -- in

10 Augusta the jury issued a general verdict which found

11 that hazardous waste went on these farmlands, that

12 that hazardous waste killed the dairy cows, that the

13 hazardous waste caused the damages to the farm, both

14 economically and physically to the lands and to the

15 dairy.

16 JIM SCOTT: The hazardous waste was contained

17 in the sludge.

18 MR. HALLMAN: It was contained in the sludge,

19 and that fact was hidden from the farmers for in

20 excess of 15 years.

21 We asked the EPA to assist us in the case,

22 and they never did. We spent in excess of $3 million

23 in time and hard cost donated by some of the most

24 prominent experts in the United States, one of whom, I

25 might add, was a student of Dr. Chaney.

46

1 And those experts made sworn findings, that

2 were never refuted by the EPA and are not refuted to

3 this day, that, in fact, hazardous waste was there.

4 We have proven that high levels of chlordane,

5 which was banned in 1978, is all over these lands,

6 high levels of mercury, high levels of PCBs, high

7 levels of selenium, cadmium levels that -- that just

8 boggle your mind.

9 JIM SCOTT: And the through the course of

10 discovery, what did you discover about the testing of

11 the sludge at the Augusta sewage treatment plants?

12 MR. HALLMAN: We discovered that every record

13 of the city of Augusta was false and fraudulent, never

14 refuted by EPA. In fact, EPA has concurred in that

15 finding. The state agency stated that the program

16 should be shut down. The Biosolids Incident Response

17 Team from EPA got that overturned and, I might add,

18 did so in a false and fraudulent manner that will be

19 developed in future litigation.

20 But the interesting thing about the case is

21 that it proves, in fact, that EPA -- and I said to EPA

22 if you -- if you take Augusta and show the nation an

23 improper program and how is should not work, then I

24 can believe in the biosolids. If you don't, it will

25 show me that the biosolids is a fraudulent, false,

47

1 evil program from A to Z, and that's what I believe

2 today.

3 JIM SCOTT: Has EPA -- has EPA capitulated?

4 MR. HALLMAN: EPA has capitulated with

5 certain people in the EPA, Inspector General,

6 omsbudman -- ombudsman and his investigator.

7 EPA is in a state of turmoil over the issue,

8 and to represent that EPA has a unified position

9 endorsing sewage sludge applications to agricultural

10 lands is an out light -- outright lie and falsehood.

11 JIM SCOTT: Is it --

12 MR. HALLMAN: It is not supported by

13 documentation.

14 JIM SCOTT: In fact, EPA has pulled back from

15 endorsing land-applied biosolids; is that right?

16 MR. HALLMAN: Exactly. And EPA has said that

17 to the citizens of Kern County and everybody in the

18 nation, we cannot verify the safety of sewer sludge.

19 That in itself is a reason never to allow it to go on

20 agricultural lands.

21 In Augusta, the city had many sets of

22 records; they cooked the books. They had, in some

23 cases, 14 versions of the same data. In one example

24 they had a field where 60 acres were covered with

25 sludge and the cadmium levels were horribly in

48

1 violation of 503, of the old applicable regulations,

2 and any law you wanted to apply to it. Six years

3 later, they created fictitious, fraudulent records

4 that showed 240 acres when that much acreage can't

5 even exist in the field in question.

6 EPA has done nothing about that. These --

7 these farmers have been left to their own devices, and

8 that's the message here. Years from now when a

9 property is sold and a house is built in a subdivision

10 and Mr. and Ms. Jones plant a tomato plant and

11 Mrs. Jones and her child drop dead from a contaminant,

12 nobody from Los Angeles is going to be there to

13 take -- to be accountable. Dr. Chaney's not going to

14 be there to be accountable. The EPA's not going to be

15 there to be accountable. And all of a sudden, you're

16 going to have a whole new era of EPA coming in and

17 saying, "Developer, landowner -- all these people in

18 Kern County have got to pay for costs associated with

19 the damage to these lands."

20 JIM SCOTT: And who's going to indemnify Kern

21 County and the Board of Supervisors?

22 MR. HALLMAN: Well, you know, that's the

23 question. Why don't L.A. County and why don't Orange

24 County indemnify Kern County? Why don't they

25 represent, certify that this sludge is free of

49
1 hazardous waste?

2 JIM SCOTT: Dr. Chaney?

3 DR. CHANEY: I've -- I've several responses

4 needed here. One is I heard in the discussions today

5 that the lawsuit that he described, upon appeal, was

6 overturned because the unfortunate, really tragic

7 situation on their farm was -- was a virus that occurs

8 within herds and that causes great loss.

9 JIM SCOTT: Is that true?

10 MR. HALLMAN: Absolutely false. The two

11 cases -- that case was not overturned. The city paid

12 the judgment. The judgment is final. The record is

13 conclusive that hazardous waste went out on that farm.

14 JIM SCOTT: The --

15 MR. HALLMAN: There's another companion case

16 where a summary judgment was granted and I argued

17 appeal before the Georgia Court of Appeals on

18 Wednesday, the 6th of April.

19 So that characterization is one of the false

20 statements that comes directly from the EPA, among

21 others.

22 And let me just speak to something that we

23 just uncovered in the last three weeks. Dr. Chaney

24 refers to EPA issuing an opinion that nobody's been

25 harmed by biosolids or sewage sludge. The -- the

50

1 opinion about Augusta was issued by an Assistant

2 Administrator of the EPA based upon a report done by a

3 University of Georgia professor, Julia Gascon, in

4 concert with a PhD professor, Dr. Henry Miller. I'd

5 like to know what Dr. Chaney thinks about that report.

6 DR. CHANEY: The Gascon paper is -- is a

7 well-done study. It was reviewed and published in the

8 Peer-Review Journal. The data makes sense in relation

9 to the composition of biosolids that were there. I --

10 I agree that there were record-keeping errors in the

11 City of Augusta. And -- and, you know, that shouldn't

12 have happened. It should have been better

13 enforcement.

14 JIM SCOTT: Was Dr. Gascon's report based on

15 the data provided by Augusta, the City of Augusta?

16 DR. CHANEY: No. It's independently

17 collected data. And that's -- that's the power of it.

18 Actually, the reason that the EPA Incident

19 Team wasn't able to do more was because the lawyers in

20 the -- wouldn't allow them on the land to get samples.

21 They finally were able to get enough samples

22 of crops and soils to -- you know, to show how much

23 accumulation of metals had occurred because of the

24 application.

25 JIM SCOTT: Were you uncooperative,

51

1 Mr. Hallman?

2 MR. HALLMAN: Absolute -- absolute lie. We

3 said --

4 DR. CHANEY: Well, that was EPA.

5 MR. HALLMAN: I was there in January of 1999

6 and opened up the information to them. The

7 information was the records in the possession of the

8 City of Augusta.

9 JIM SCOTT: Which they have been --

10 MR. HALLMAN: It didn't take rocket science

11 to look at those records and say they were fraudulent.

12 In addition, this whole issue of Julia Gascon

13 is -- is very interesting because --

14 JIM SCOTT: I'm -- I'm running short on

15 time --

16 MR. HALLMAN: Okay.

17 JIM SCOTT: -- Mr. Hallman, let me -- let me

18 just stop you there.

19 But is this an isolated case, do you think?

20 MR. HALLMAN: No, I do not.

21 JIM SCOTT: And -- and what does this say

22 about the relationship between the EPA and the

23 sanitation districts in America? I mean, can you make

24 a broad-brush statement --

25 MR. HALLMAN: Yes.

52

1 JIM SCOTT: -- or accusation on this? Is it

2 possible?

3 MR. HALLMAN: Yeah.

4 JIM SCOTT: I don't think it would be fair.

5 But is everybody running their sanitation districts

6 this way? I don't think you can say that.

7 MR. HALLMAN: What you have is -- the

8 question is not what they report; the question is what

9 they don't report. And every sewage treatment plant

10 has industry depositing constituents into that sewage

11 treatment plant, and they don't test for those

12 constituents.

13 If I have an industrial client doing the same

14 thing and loading the same truck and they take that

15 truck and spread it without doing more -- by doing the

16 same thing that, say, L.A. County and Orange County

17 do, they would be put under the jail because there are

18 land disposal restrictions that are applicable.

19 So what the agency or what these propagators

20 of sewage sludge have done is they have tried to

21 create a hole through which a Mack truck can drive by

22 not requiring that this stuff be sampled. And you

23 sample it once a month, and you sample it once a

24 quarter, and the sludge is already out there.

25 I've had this discussion with them: What do

53

1 you do if that sludge is illegal even with the limited

2 sampling they are doing? Nothing.

3 JIM SCOTT: Okay. Let me -- we're running

4 short on time. Again, we have got about three minutes

5 left.

6 What would you say, Dr. Snyder, to lawmakers

7 here at the county level and at the state level with

8 regard to what course Kern County should take as we go

9 down the road in the future regarding biosolids?

10 DR. SNYDER: It's unrealistic to say, "Ban it

11 today" because the stuff is being produced every day.

12 But you need to realize this is not a benign

13 nutrient-rich fertilizer. It is a toxic, hazardous

14 waste product, and it needs to -- the less -- less you

15 put on, the better it is.

16 And if you can -- in a sense you're saying,

17 "All right. Let's ban it in Kern County"; then some

18 other county will get it that hasn't got maybe the

19 legal clout that you have, and that's really not fair.

20 What -- what needs to be done is -- it needs to be

21 addressed.

22 I don't think a county can do it. It needs

23 to be addressed from the top, from Congress.

24 JIM SCOTT: And, Mr. Hallman, what would you

25 say to our lawmakers who -- who are relying on this

54

1 science and are relying on the EPA to make sure that

2 sanitation districts are in compliance because they

3 have no other way to really verify this on a

4 day-to-day basis?

5 MR. HALLMAN: I think what they have to do is

6 go beyond the illusion of safety and look at what the

7 stuff really contains.

8 Ask Orange County, ask L.A. to give a total

9 list of all the industries that contribute to the --

10 to the sewage stream and tell what's in it and give

11 proof that they're requiring them to account as to

12 what's in it and give proof that they're accounting as

13 to what's actually going in the sludge and the volumes

14 that are being produced.

15 Ask them to certify in a conclusive fashion

16 so the citizens who are receiving it can depend upon

17 it. Certify the safety of that sludge.

18 There are other alternatives. There are

19 land-filling alternatives; there are incin-

20 incineration alternatives. The technology's there --

21 JIM SCOTT: I -- I got to give -- thank you

22 very much, Mr. Hallman.

23 Mr. Chaney -- Dr. Chaney, you've got the last

24 30 seconds, sir. I know there is a lot to --

25 DR. CHANEY: I think there has been a great

55

1 deal of research about util- -- beneficial utilization

2 of biosolids -- looking at flow of contaminants,

3 insisting on industrial pretreatment -- so that we

4 have biosolids that we can recommend that are safe for

5 use. I think knowing that most of the compounds that

6 were discussed are water soluble and either destroyed

7 during sewage treatment or in the up fluent, not that

8 much of them are ending up in the biosolids --

9 JIM SCOTT: Uh-huh.

10 DR. CHANEY: -- and they're not taken up into

11 plants. There needed -- you've been told a story -- I

12 can give you the references to say that's just plain

13 not the way the world is.

14 JIM SCOTT: Well, I'm not sure if we covered

15 any new ground here, but, certainly, we got some fresh

16 perspectives.

17 I want to specially thank our out-of-town

18 guests -- Diane Gilbert, Dr. Chaney, Mr. Hallman, and

19 Dr. Snyder -- for coming here and being part of our

20 discussion tonight.

21 DR. SNYDER: Thank you for inviting us here.

22 JIM SCOTT: And I want to thank all of you

23 for watching tonight.

24 This is a new program we've developed here at

25 17 News. We'll be back in a couple of months with

56

1 another installment of 17 In-Depth.

2 Until then, I'm Jim Scott for 17 News.

3 Thanks for watching.

57

1 STATE OF CALIFORNIA )

2 COUNTY OF KERN ) ss.

7 I, Candi Stumbaugh, do hereby certify

8 that I transcribed the foregoing-entitled matter; and

9 I further certify that the foregoing is a full, true,

10 and correct transcription of such proceedings.

11 Dated this Friday, April 15, 2005, in

12 Bakersfield, California.

16
____________________
17 Candi Stumbaugh

Legislators change opinion of sludge bill

2005-04-07T09:31:00.000-07:00

Legislators change opinion of sludge bill

Updated 04/06/05
BAKERSFIELD - From the dumping ground to the board room, Kern County’s messy sludge situation has become a political hot button, and some local legislators are doing an about face when it comes to a solution.

The most recent surprise came Tuesday at the Kern County Board of Supervisors meeting, where Supervisor Don Maben made a motion directing county staff to come up with a proposed ordinance to ban biosolids in Kern County all together.

The move came after Maben initially expressed reservations about banning biosolids.

“We were always afraid, if we took some action here, it would affect our lawsuit going on with the generators and applicators,” said Maben.

Both Maben and Supervisor Ray Watson said last week’s court ruling requiring that Kern County do an environmental impact report on Class B sludge, opened the door to ultimately do the right thing.

“I figured this is an opportunity to test the waters and see if the board will support at least having County Counsel draft up the ordinance, and they did,” said Maben.

Watson agreed.

“When the county or any type of local government acts on these kind of issues, they have to do it on the basis of scientific information,” said Watson.

Watson said in addition to Friday’s court ruling, having the support of Sen. Dean Florez impacted his decision.

“This is a battle Kern County has been fighting by itself now for quite a number of years,” said Watson. “We've spent thousands of hours of our staff time and legal time and a million dollars in fees and cost to get to where we are now.”

The Florez factor is also swaying city council member Zach Scrivner, who was the only vote of opposition against banning biosolids at last week’s meeting.

“Four days later, as I was thinking, we have a bill that is completely different and now it's time to take a look and see what this one does,” said Scrivner.

Now local legislators are on board to ban biosolids from being dumped in Kern County, some state legislators have yet to form a position.

Assembly member Nicole Parra said this is a complex issue, and she is still looking at all the ramifications, including the economic impact it may have on the Central Valley, so she hasn’t developed a position.

Assembly leader Kevin McCarthy said he supports Florez’s bill to protect Kern County from the importation of sludge from other counties. He also said he looks forward to working with Florez to advance the bill through the legislature.

Watson said some lawmakers like Congressman Bill Thomas, may be reluctant to get involved because they know it will be hard to get a law passed and make it stick in court.

http://www.kget.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=491624FD-59C9-453F-B9B2-F2739B2C3B75

Sludge, spread across the land, makes some people vomit and others very rich

2005-03-31T10:05:00.000-08:00

Wretched Excess
Sludge, spread across the land, makes some people vomit and others very rich
BY JOSH HARKINSON

In a Tanglewood office tower, visitors who feel the urge can ride an elevator to the top floor, round a corner and walk into a small restroom. They can gargle from a complimentary bottle of Cool Mint Listerine or use the toilet bowl covers, known as Health Gards, free of charge. There is no coin-operated lock on the door, no plaque saying "Customers Only" and no tuxedo-clad attendant inside hawking towels for tips.

But here in the national headquarters of Synagro, the public lavatory reaps dividends. An employee in an adjacent stall flushes his commode, sending his poop on a journey that will end in one of the corporation's trucks, which will dispose of the waste for the city. "We always joke that when we go on bathroom breaks," the employee says, "we're just adding to the bottom line."

The bottom line, in Synagro's case, depends on a lot of derrieres. The company contracts with municipalities across the country to rid them of their sewage sludge. It in turn uses the sludge to feed a growing, feces-based economy. Thousands of farmers and ranchers who once boosted their harvests with cow manure or synthetic fertilizers recently have been converted by Synagro to using human waste. The company even sells sludge -- or biosolids, as it calls it -- to golf courses and ships it to Florida citrus groves.

Farms and fields are now the final resting places for the majority of the nation's poop -- thanks in large part to Synagro's efforts. In 1998, the company operated in three states and logged $20 million in annual revenue. Last year, it worked in 37 states and grossed $300 million. Nearly every toilet bowl in every major city in the United States fertilizes its coffers. One of the 100 largest corporations in Houston, it reigns over a doo-doo empire.

This revolution in waste disposal was born of an era of pink antibacterial hand soap, treacly air freshener and increasing scrutiny at the other end of the pipes. The Environmental Protection Agency has argued that spreading sludge on farmland is safer than old methods of disposing of it in rivers and oceans. Synagro agrees, and pledges in its mission statement to "enhance the environment and the quality of the communities that we serve."

Typical of such communities is the small town of Guy. A Fort Bend County ranching hamlet 40 miles from Synagro's headquarters, it became, in 1997, a destination for the contents of Houston's toilets.

Not everybody would have called the town lucky. Dr. David Lewis, at the time a high-ranking EPA scientist, criticized the agency's handling of sludge, arguing that it was creating "the Mount Everest of environmental problems." Lewis cited the example of 11-year-old Tony Behun, who rode his motorbike through a sludge application site in Pennsylvania in 1994 and fell ill with skin lesions, fever and respiratory problems. He died four days later.

Yet the sludge trucks hit Guy before the debate over the science. "The first day they came out," says Keith Massey, a retired Baptist preacher, "it smelled just like I was in a crapper."

The trucks rumbled past Massey's house all that day and into the night. They dumped their loads in a nearby pasture, heaping them into gelatinous piles. Massey's nine-year-old granddaughter awoke around midnight. She ran for the toilet, stopped short and threw up.

You shall have a place outside the camp and go there, and you shall have a spade among your tools, and it shall be when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and shall turn to cover up your excrement. Since the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and to defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy... -- Deuteronomy 23:12-14

During his 44 years preaching the word of God in small-town churches, Massey saw a few miracles. His Bible's yellowed and soiled pages converted sinners to believers, pulled a teenager off drugs and healed a bitter soul who had lost a brother. Massey knew God could feed the hungry and part the Red Sea. So the preacher appealed to Him to part a sea of sludge.

The scripture, however, didn't do much to sway James Yelderman, the owner of the pasture near Massey's house, who said his sleepy land needed a boost. So Massey asked Yelderman if he wanted a flock of angry neighbors. Yelderman said he wanted the sludge.

The spring wind rustled across the water sedge, whipping the stench through Massey's open windows. He was building his modest ranch-style house by hand, with the help of his favorite Carpenter, and still hadn't installed air conditioning. A print on his wall showed an old-fashioned barn and a saucer moon. A plaque on his microwave said, "Teach Kindness."

Massey picked up his telephone that week and asked the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission (now the TCEQ), to kindly intervene. Donna Phillips, the commission's local sludge team leader, sniffed out the problem, reporting that the goop piles "didn't smell like 'good' quality sludge." A truck driver told her a Houston wastewater plant was having aeration problems. Phillips tested a sample of the sludge two months later and found the pH levels were below federal standards.

Meanwhile, the trucks kept rolling in. They rumbled down the gravel roads and dumped the sludge onto a staging area, where manure spreaders picked it up and trundled across the fields, whisking it left and right off conveyors. Or they shot it out in arcing blasts through pressurized water cannons.

"It was just horrible trying to sleep," Massey says. "You could almost taste it, it was so rank."

Complaints about the sludge mounted through the summer. Truck drivers reported picking up loads that were dark and fetid. According to the Herald Coaster, a local newspaper, residents described themselves as prisoners in their own homes. The stench was so bad that children were sometimes unable to wait outside for the school bus.

Yet the problems for Massey's family were worse. Fecal dust blowing from the open-bed sludge trucks and nearby fields caused his two young grandchildren to develop coughs and runny noses, he claims. And Massey says a doctor diagnosed him with a bacterial stomach infection and prescribed three varieties of antibiotics. He claims the physician likened his stomach to those of "kids in a third-world country that play in the sewer."

Growing increasingly frustrated with the persistent stench, Massey resorted to threats, according to state records. On a tour of a sludge site with TCEQ and Synagro officials, he stopped his pickup along a road, climbed out and pointed to a Synagro office where a worker was sitting outside. He reportedly said: "I have a .44 that I could take over there right now and put an end to all of this." When TCEQ investigators visited a few months later and told Massey that the odor near his house was merely "slight and intermittent," he bitched them out. He called a high-ranking agency official and complained, saying he knew how to take care of the problem with "a bullet in the back of the head." The agency informed him by mail that it no longer would respond to his calls, but that only provoked him. A truck driver with Enviroganics, another company that was applying sludge nearby, reported that the retired preacher pulled a gun and fired into the air to persuade him to stop working.

Environmental attorneys wanted to charge $30,000 to help Massey sue -- money he didn't have. TCEQ officials in Austin couldn't help him either. "I didn't have enough money even to take them out to lunch," he says.

State officials say they never abandoned Massey or the residents of Guy. "It's been a pretty exhaustive investigation of all of the allegations out there," says Bryan Eastham, who later took over as the region's sludge team leader. "It's gone on for six or seven years, total, and out of multiple investigations out there, there were a couple of minor violations, which were resolved."

Massey eventually changed his approach. He bought a dust mask to wear while mowing the lawn. "I just felt like I had to do something," he says.

But his family's health problems worsened. Less than two years after the sludge spreading began near his property, his daughter delivered baby Kade, who was born with cerebellum hypoplasia, an obscure brain defect caused by a buildup of fluids inside his head.

Although the doctors who diagnosed Kade couldn't be reached for comment and there is no direct evidence pinning his medical condition on sludge, Massey cites anecdotal links. A few months earlier, he discovered a stillborn calf in a pasture where sludge had been applied. Lawsuits in other states have claimed ties between sludge and health and reproductive problems in cattle. Some doctors have argued that sludge also could cause birth problems in humans.

After his birth, Kade stayed in Texas Children's Hospital for six weeks, spending much of that time on a respirator or under an oxygen hood. Doctors drained infections in his ears with plastic tubes. Pressure on his brain mounted, and the physicians eventually performed another operation when he was three years old. They cut his head from ear to ear, pulled the skin down and restructured his skull. Kade had barely talked before the operation. Afterward, his vocabulary was cut in half.

For the other Massey grandchildren, life in the country resembled life behind an urban latchkey. When the wind blew across the pasture, they stayed indoors and watched television. A five-month-old grandchild who moved in with the family later that year developed a 103-degree fever. He had never been sick, Massey says, yet repeatedly ran fevers afterward and saw a doctor bimonthly.

Massey drove to Richmond that May and told the Fort Bend County Commissioners Court that the EPA and the TCEQ were in the pocket of the sludge industry. "I pray that you will help us to protect our children," he preached in the pages of the Herald Coaster. "I'm in this alone..."

Massey might have been a rogue prophet at the time, but his plight didn't go unnoticed. Four months later, Synagro threatened to sue him for defamation based on his comments. "[Y]ou have stated that the spreading of sludge is using land as a 'pay toilet,' " said a letter from the company's attorneys, "and that the spreading of sludge by Synagro produces an obnoxious odor, affects air quality, and is linked to a number of health issues such as increased risk of birth defects, fetal abortions and stillbirths."

Massey obviously lacked the training to stand up to Synagro's scientists and lawyers. But he had heard of an EPA scientist and sludge critic in Athens, Georgia. Massey dialed Lewis.

"I just asked him if there was some way we could get him out here to help us fight this sludge," he says. "...When I told him we were having some kinds of problems out here, he was more interested."

Lewis flew to Houston, drove to Angleton and addressed 200 people at the Brazoria County Courthouse. Synagro was invited at his request to speak in defense of sludge. The company held a separate forum, along with the TCEQ. The headline in the Herald Coaster read: "Sludge Scientists Duel in Separate Angleton Meetings." It was a small-town debate with repercussions that went all the way to Washington.

Lewis had emerged ten years earlier from a similarly massive debate over a very different sort of anal fixation. In the early 1990s -- a time when public fears were running high about AIDS and gay sex -- he discovered that HIV could be transmitted through an unexpected pathway: the lubricants in common dental equipment. The findings rocked the dental industry and thrust him onto TV screens across the nation.

Such a large discovery was typical for Lewis's EPA laboratory, which was known for producing cutting-edge science from its remote perch in sleepy Athens. But the same independent thinking that characterized the Athens lab also fueled its intransigence. The lab often bucked the EPA's top brass, and nowhere was that more evident than in the squishy sludge debate.

Before the EPA released a new rule regulating sludge application, it asked Lewis's lab and several others to review it. The new rule would replace interim regulations dating from 1989, which limited the levels of heavy metals -- such as mercury and cadmium -- that could be present in sludge. Lewis testified in congressional hearings that the updated version set weaker standards for some substances and "was not considered to be scientifically sound by any of the laboratories that looked at it."

Yet the EPA was under tremendous pressure to push it down the pipeline. The agency was concerned that sludge was polluting beaches, causing toxic algae blooms and killing fish, and thus had just banned the practice of dumping sewage sludge in the ocean, which had been standard procedure in many coastal cities. And yet sludge had to go somewhere, and disposing of it in landfills or incinerating it was expensive. Sewage companies argued that a streamlined rule would make the spreading of waste on farmland a more practical option.

The EPA issued the new rule in 1993 based on a compromise: The agency would conduct $10 million in additional research on sludge over the next five years.

Hardly any of that research happened. Offered a small fraction of the promised funding, Lewis's lab dropped out of the effort. "Our lab came to the opinion that Washington was not serious about doing the science," he says, "so we just weren't going to be a part of it."

Meanwhile, the EPA was actively promoting the spreading of sludge on farmland, releasing a brochure in 1994 showing the verdant lawns of Mount Vernon, which it said sludge had helped to make abundantly green.

Lewis initially stayed in the background in the sludge fight, watching other critics take flak. He wears large glasses and speaks like an unassuming Atticus Finch, in the soft, rounded accent of the Deep South. But two years later, he slammed the top management at the EPA in a fiery op-ed in the highly prestigious journal Nature. He blamed the agency for making rules before it could back them up with science, and cited the sludge rule as a perfect, sordid example.

The EPA went after Lewis immediately. It nitpicked over a disclaimer printed beneath the article -- "This commentary represents the author's personal views, and not those of the U.S. EPA" -- saying it appeared in too small a font. And it accused him of violating the Hatch Act by involving himself in a partisan campaign issue.

The U.S. Department of Labor found that the EPA's actions against Lewis were discriminatory and overruled them. Even so, he was kept on a tight leash. He began researching sludge, yet almost everything he did had to be approved by managers in Washington. The EPA denied him a promotion. And the labor department intervened, again.

"I considered it to be a moral disservice to sit there at the lab and get paid $107,000 a year to basically publish only data that supports the agency's stance," he says. So he decided to get out. He dropped his labor complaints and agreed to retire from the EPA within four years. In exchange, the EPA continued to pay his salary in the interim at the University of Georgia, where the Department of Marine Sciences was interested in securing him a tenured professorship.

Lewis already had released a study that raised a stink over sludge. He had argued earlier that year that pathogens in sludge could survive in the gelatinous goop in a manner similar to how HIV had survived in the lubricants of dental equipment. At UGA, he published a paper in Nature examining pollutants that are chiral, meaning that they exist in different forms. He found toxic residues from these pollutants were likely to persist much longer than expected in agricultural lands treated with sludge. "Our results showed, basically, that we are changing the way pollutants persist," Lewis says, "and nobody realizes that."

The Nature paper won a top award from the EPA, and Lewis was promoted to a position as one of the agency's most senior scientists. He was suddenly the best-known sludge critic in the nation.

Yet even as the EPA rewarded Lewis, it continued harassing him. Agency lawyers argued that his mandate at UGA was to study dental and medical issues, not sludge. They yanked all of his funding and barred him from collaborating on sludge with the agency's other scientists. The EPA "never had the intent of keeping their end of the bargain," he says.

Lewis called up his legal team and fought back. He rustled up a half-million dollars in private funds, plus $80,000 of his own money, to continue his research. In an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2000, he said: "They call it biosolids, but all it is is human waste after they've filtered out the tampon applicators."

A few months later, the EPA commissioned an internal peer review of Lewis's latest sludge study. Many of the reviewers had blatant conflicts of interest. One of them previously helped direct a public relations campaign to make the case that sludge was safe. Another reviewer, Dr. John Walker, was the EPA's public spokesperson on sludge. According to a lawsuit filed by Lewis, Walker collaborated on his peer review with Synagro.

The partnership between the EPA and Synagro marked the beginning of a combined effort to discredit Lewis's work, his lawsuit alleges. Synagro soon issued a 27-page White Paper attacking Lewis. It bashed his public statements, credentials and research, concluding that he had resorted to "uninformed, unsupported, and otherwise unsound science in attempting to prove his position."

Walker distributed the White Paper two days later, under official EPA letterhead, at a public meeting in Georgia, a legal complaint says. A UGA professor present at the meeting testified that it was his impression that the EPA "had endorsed the White Paper."

But despite the allegations of stinky profit motives, there were some good reasons to use sludge on farmland. Synagro and the EPA weren't just hawking crocks of shit.

The business of selling sludge goes somewhat counterintuitively. In many cases, it doesn't even involve selling at all. A farmer can walk into Synagro's office, sit down in a plush chair beneath a framed photograph of a Terra-Gator biosolids truck and sign a contract to receive sludge from Synagro free of charge.

"The farmers really love it," says Alvin Thomas, Synagro general counsel and executive vice president. He estimates that applying sludge allows farmers to save up to $100 an acre on fertilizer costs and boost yields by up to 200 percent. "In the climate right now, where farming has been under so much economic pressure," he says, "it is a huge benefit to agricultural America."

In fact, fertilizer generated from human bowels may trump most things man has produced through other methods. "It provides some benefits that a chemical fertilizer does not," Thomas says. For example, sludge absorbs and retains water. It provides beneficial micronutrients not found in chemical additives. And it tends to release nutrients such as nitrogen and potassium more slowly, limiting their potential to seep into streams.

Despite these advantages, Thomas knows sludge sometimes can be a hard sell. After all, many civilizations have endeavored for millennia to throw out poop with as much speed and finality as possible. The first flush toilets were invented 4,000 years ago by the Indus Valley civilization in what is now Pakistan. Roman aqueducts carried waste miles from the source. And even now, a large chunk of the 35 million gallons of sewage produced in America every day ends up out of sight and out of mind in municipal landfills.

Peddling sludge thus requires Synagro to persuade people to look beyond toilets, pipes and sinkholes and into the 21st century. When a turd leaves the company's bathroom -- or any bathroom in the North Loop region -- it migrates through winding sewers, gets boosted into a single pipe as wide as a car and is funneled into Houston's 69th Street Wastewater Treatment Plant, where -- as Synagro assiduously stresses -- it ceases to be poop.

"It's a very good process," says Gurdip Hyare, the plant's chief engineer, who wears sunglasses on a drizzly morning and carries a closed umbrella. Hyare has agreed to walk through each step of this fecal odyssey, and opens the door to a roaring chamber. The four pumps inside can lift enough wastewater to fill an Olympic swimming pool every two minutes. They carry the sewage up several stories and into four open-air chutes.

Outside, it smells just like a giant overflowing toilet. The chutes channel brown streams through grates known as bar screens, where an automatic rake scrapes them of unwanted trash. Hyare briskly walks past a screen peppered with tampon applicators and through a muddy tunnel.

The real dirty work at the plant is done in the next stages, inside two sets of cement, bunkerlike reactors. Nozzles inject the sewage with oxygen, and varying forms of aerobic bacteria break down many of the pathogens. "These microorganisms, they are hungry," Hyare says, "and their food is the contaminants."

Water flows out of the reactors, through a series of filters, and into the Ship Channel. Meanwhile, the heavy fecal material settles to the bottom of collecting pools, where it is sucked into pipes, strained through a separator to weed out debris and partially wicked of moisture in pools known as thickeners. It's now ready to be groomed for the field.

Hyare leads the way into the bowels of the plant's roaring sludge-processing facility -- a massive five-story factory where signs say, "Carelessness Is Dangerousness." Controlled via computer monitors in a turquoise-tiled office, 21 whining centrifuges dry the sludge and drop it onto conveyor belts. Nearly every surface in the plant is covered in varyingly thick layers of black dust.

At some Houston facilities, the sludge would be handed over to Synagro at this stage and hauled out to a ranch. The EPA calls such material "class B" biosolids because it still contains some pathogens. This was the type of sludge applied near Massey's house. Farmers often prefer it because it's free.

The 69th Street factory, however, is more advanced. Inside a mixer known as a cage mill, the sludge is blasted with 1,200-degree gas. Massive vacuum fans, which sound like Godzilla's hair dryer, then suck it into a five-story chute. The heat transforms it into dry pellets that are nearly devoid of pathogens. An adjacent silo stores them and dispenses them into Synagro's trucks. Farmers, home gardeners and anyone else can purchase and use this "class A" product from Synagro without a permit.

Synagro contends that both class A and class B materials are safe. "They are equal as long as you follow the rules under both," Thomas says. "And that's actually where there has been a lot of improper public perception."

But the rules also allow sludge to include much more than processed poop. Biosolids can contain trace amounts of Prozac and birth control pills; organic chemicals such as dioxins and PCBs; and heavy metals. Wastewater treatment plants can't remove many such toxins, which form a large part of what gets poured down the drain in industrial Houston.

"I mean, you can [also] find things in ice cream and hot dogs," Thomas says. "...Just because something is in there doesn't mean that it's problematic."

For the debate about sludge to spill over into the halls of Washington, more papers needed to clog the pipes.

In 2001, Robert Hale, a researcher with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, made a splash in Nature when he questioned the limited scope of the EPA's sludge risk analysis. Hale detected in sludge high levels of brominated flame retardants, which have been banned in Europe because of their potential toxicity. The risk assessment never determined what levels of the flame retardants were safe, Hale says, nor did it study the vast majority of the 100,000 other chemicals that are likely present in municipal waste.

Pressed on the issue, the EPA's scientists "really haven't had a satisfactory response to that," he says.

Major scientific institutions soon began to echo Hale's concerns. A Status Report issued in 2002 by the EPA's own Office of the Inspector General concluded that the "EPA cannot assure the public that current land application practices are protective of human health and the environment." A few months later, a National Academy of Sciences panel called for more research on sludge application, arguing that there was still "persistent uncertainty" about its safety.

The reports also questioned the EPA's ability to enforce its own sludge policies. The ten EPA regions that year employed approximately nine full-time workers, who covered all areas of biosolids management across the United States. (The EPA was unable to say whether staffing levels have increased since then.) Yet even when sludge is applied properly, the material might not meet federal standards. Ellen Harrison, director of the Cornell Waste Management Institute, reviewed data on sludge from a New York State waste treatment plant that year and found strong evidence that it had been bungled or fudged.

Meanwhile, Lewis's work kept the EPA's nose on the trail of sludge-related illnesses. He analyzed 54 health cases that had been reported near sludge sites, and reported an unusually high incidence of staph infections -- common bacterial infections that can lead to serious illnesses if not treated. Most of the doctors he interviewed already believed their patients' problems were linked to sludge. And yet the victims "were typically not getting anything but the runaround" from the EPA and state agencies, Lewis says.

Some of the health problems were severe. The same year Tony Behun rode his motorbike through a sludge-covered field in Pennsylvania, Daniel Pennock, a teenager in the same state, walked across a sludge site and died shortly thereafter of a bacterial infection. And a year later, Shayne Connor went to sleep in a house 300 feet from a sludge field in New Hampshire and died from interactions of irritant chemicals and pathogens in the sludge, experts argue. Synagro disputes the alleged connections.

Lewis's analysis went on to become the seventh-most-accessed article ever to appear in Biomed Central, a set of major medical journals. Even so, the EPA said it planned to hold Lewis to his labor dispute agreement. Senator James Inhofe, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, wrote a letter to EPA Administrator Christine Whitman asking her to intervene. But no matter: In May 2003 Lewis was fired.

"My personal opinion is there were just two or three people driving this whole process of getting rid of me," Lewis says, "and it was the people who were connected with developing the sludge rule."

Getting rid of Lewis, however, didn't make running damage control over sludge any easier for the EPA. A month later, a jury in Richmond County, Georgia, found that sludge from the city of Augusta was responsible for polluting farmland and killing 300 cows at the Boyce family farm. A similar case involving the adjacent RA McElmurray Sons dairy is on appeal. Andy McElmurray says contaminants in sludge, such as cadmium, weakened the cows' immune systems, causing deaths and stillbirths.

"There is the danger that is not told to the landowner or the farmer; he gets caught in a trap," McElmurray says. "You will see contaminants on your land that are not reported to you, that one day may come back and catch you."

Despite such examples, the EPA later denied a request lodged by environmental groups to ban sludge spreading. It noted that ten years' worth of research went into drafting the sludge policies. Dr. Alan Rubin, who authored the sludge rule for the EPA and retired from the agency in January, says any toxic chemicals in sludge are likely present in such low concentrations that they shouldn't pose a threat. He stresses that there isn't a single documented case in which sludge has been proved to be the cause of a major human health problem. And he says subsequent research has failed to back up some of Lewis's assertions.

Lewis's theory linking sludge to staph infections was later addressed by Dr. Ian Pepper, director of the University of Arizona National Science Foundation Water Quality Center. In a study partially funded by Synagro, Pepper reported that he had analyzed biosolids from 15 locations and failed to find any strains of Staphylococcus aureus. He argued that the findings disproved the staph theory.

Yet Lewis disputes that claim. Pepper's study searched for only one variety of staph and used outdated methods, he says. It examined sludge fresh from treatment plants but didn't look at older sludge that could pick up and incubate staph. Furthermore, he adds, staph infections need not be picked up directly from sludge. If inhaling sludge dust compromises the immune system, it could make it easier to contract the infections elsewhere.

What most scientists agree on is that important questions about the safety of sludge remain unanswered. In an attempt to resolve them, the EPA and a diverse group of sludge stakeholders met two months after Lewis was fired and put together a committee that, to date, is still in the planning stages of commissioning more research on sludge, including reports of health complaints. But some critics note that the effort is organized by the industry-dominated Water Environment Research Foundation. As a result, says Caroline Snyder, director of Citizens for Sludge-Free Land, "federal grants go to sludge-friendly scientists."

Instead of waiting for more research to emerge, other countries have taken a precautionary approach. The Netherlands bans almost all land application of biosolids, and Switzerland is phasing out the practice. Other European countries regulate additional substances in sludge and impose limits on heavy metals that are more than three times stricter than those in the United States.

In lieu of deferring to the EPA, states and rural localities have sometimes regulated sludge on their own. Biosolids companies in Texas and many other states must apply for permits to spread class B sludge and must mark sludge sites with signs. Dozens of rural regions have enacted restrictive fees on sludge. Class B biosolids have been completely banned by 15 counties in California and seven counties and eight townships in Minnesota. Yet some communities find they can't close the floodgates. Courts recently overruled local bans on sludge spreading in Pennsylvania and Florida, arguing that such authority rests with the state government.

Activists wanting to learn more about sludge increasingly called and e-mailed Lewis. And yet he was simultaneously yanked further out of the trenches. His disputes with the EPA gradually permeated onto the UGA campus, souring his job prospects. "I was realizing that I was in a really huge bind," Lewis says. "With EPA in Washington soliciting help from industry to basically totally discredit me as a scientist, it was dawning on me that I probably wasn't going to be able to get a job anywhere."

Lewis wrangled with Synagro and the EPA over allegations and counterallegations of defamation. Meanwhile, the ingredients for sludge kept coming. American Standards, Kohlers and Totos formed myriad tributaries of a widening delta.

A few months after Lewis spoke at the sludge meeting in Massey's community, God finally intervened. Yelderman, the local rancher who used the sludge, got off work at the Dow Chemical plant, suffered a heart attack on the drive home, crashed his car and died. His brother agreed to stop applying sludge on the family land, and the last load was dumped two years ago.

Larger agricultural outfits have made similar decisions. Organic farmers forswear biosolids, and Del Monte, Western Growers and the H.J. Heinz Company refuse to accept produce grown on land treated with sludge. The National Farmers Union has enacted a policy stating: "The current practice of...spreading hazardous wastes and Class B biosolids on land surfaces...should be discontinued."

Nevertheless, Synagro's search for ranchers to replace the Yeldermans quickly moved forward. Fourth-generation rice grower Ronald Gerston soon discovered that Synagro was seeking a permit to spread Houston sludge near his family's farm in Wharton County.

The Gerston family raised concerns in a public meeting but decided fighting the permit was a waste of time. Unless someone could scientifically debunk the proposal, TCEQ officials would approve it. Neither citizens' fears about smells nor recent scientific studies questioning the overall safety of sludge would sway them.

On a recent winter afternoon, Gerston's paddies were shallow lakes. A swollen creek consumed a muddy road near the spot where Synagro planned to send its sludge trucks. Peering out at his neighbor's soggy land, Gerston argued that the waste might be swept downstream or seep into abandoned wells and contaminate groundwater. "On the Gulf Coast," he said, "you've got in excess of 40 inches of rainfall that will cause flooding almost anywhere."

A coastal breeze swept across his land and over the quaint town of Lissie, where ornate Victorian homes and a turn-of-the-century church were clustered less than a mile down the road. A swing in one yard dangled from a tree bough. In another, an outdoor chair sat among potted plants. A yard was filled with bikes, a tricycle and a trampoline.

The sludge permit is still pending.

"You would need a scientist and a lawyer on call to fight this," said Gerston's brother, John. "The way they do it, the law is on Synagro's side."

A few miles closer to Houston, Massey walks out of his house on a clear, cool morning, climbs into his squeaky F-250 Lariat and drops the windows. He chugs along a fence line and down flat, graveled Wolfgang Road, passing a hawk and wading herons. The sludge is long gone, and the wind carries nothing but the smell of wet earth and winter grass.

Yet Massey's nose won't let him forget. He points past a thicket of trees to an abandoned sludge-dumping depot. "That's where they piled it up," he says. "I can almost smell it now."

Massey says he still feels the sludge's lingering effects. He takes pills three times a day from a cluster of large bottles to control the knots in his stomach. And his five-year-old grandson is most likely permanently brain-damaged; he has yet to utter more than a few words.

At least Massey was able to call on Lewis to help challenge the government on its own terms. The Gerstons won't have that option.

Worn down from staving off threats of lawsuits and fearful of attacks on his colleagues, Lewis forswore all involvement in sludge issues in a December e-mail to his friends, and stopped staying current on sludge research. "The bottom line is that I have taken this effort as far as humanly possible," he wrote.

"So, please let me know how everyone is doing, but if you're not feeling well because of sludge, please don't mention it to me because there's nothing I can do right now but pray for you. If sludge is causing the problem, God will know it without you having to tell me."

Massey is fond of the saying that God answers prayers in three ways: yes, no and wait. Only time will tell if other scientists pick up where Lewis left off.

More U.S. cities might eventually choose to process their sewage into cleaner forms, send it to landfills or incinerate it. But the EPA won't soon wash its hands of sludge. Past the toilets and waste plants, the Terra-Gators and fecal fields, and the harvests of beef and oranges, America's waste flows back to its dinner plates. There is no magic flusher, no end of the line.

http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/2005-03-31/news/feature_9.html
From houstonpress.com
Originally published by Houston Press Mar 31, 2005
+++++++

Senator campaigns to get public to say no to sludge in Kern

2005-03-30T12:08:00.000-08:00

Senator campaigns to get public to say no to sludge in Kern
Florez launches ad, blog urging public to speak up at Tuesday board meeting
By CHRISTINE BEDELL, Californian staff writer
e-mail: cbedell@bakersfield.com

Posted: Tuesday March 29th, 2005, 11:45 PM
Last Updated: Tuesday March 29th, 2005, 11:54 PM

State Sen. Dean Florez is turning to technology old and new to get the public behind a sludge-importation ban.
Florez, D-Shafter, started airing radio ads this week encouraging people to show up at the Tuesday Kern County Board of Supervisors meeting where the panel will be asked to support or rebuke Florez's proposed sludge law.

Florez also is launching a blog, www.stopdumpingonkern.blogspot.com, to capture community sentiment on the topic.

"The Board of Supervisors can be moved by public opinion," Florez said. "Momentum in politics is everything."

The current ad features a man and a woman -- Florez staffers -- talking about sludge's hazards and how awful it is to be Los Angeles' dumping ground.

Florez then asks, "Can you believe our county doesn't properly test all of it for health hazards?" He says he's "tired of it."

Kern County Supervisor Ray Watson called the ads "a political deal." Florez would do more good, he said, by making a few calls.

"If he wanted to help solve the problem, he could pick up the phone and talk to a couple supervisors, county counsel, the (county) Resource Management Agency and say, 'How can I help you?'"

Sewage sludge is a mix of treated human and industrial waste spread as fertilizer for nonedible crops. Kern County only allows a highly treated form of the material.

Florez would like to ban the transportation of biosolids over county lines to stop the nearly half-million tons of sludge trucked into Kern from Southern California annually. He's worried about environmental contamination, especially of groundwater.

Watson said an importation ban would violate the commerce clause of the Constitution. He said he'd like to see statewide regulation of sludge that "is defensible" in court but as for Florez's bill, he's just seen a "framework."

He said sludge is tested before it gets to Kern and afterward, officials monitor wells for signs of water contamination and crops to make sure the sites aren't "overloaded."

Florez plans to spend about $15,000 in his own campaign funds on the current and future ads. The current ones will run until Monday on several radio stations. Future ads will feature people talking about what it's like living near sludge-application sites and scientists detailing the health risks, he said.

Florez said the supervisors meeting is a pivotal day for his bill. If the board doesn't back him, he said, he'll tell state lawmakers he's having to act.

But if the supervisors agree a ban is needed and pursue a county ordinance, Florez said, his bill won't be needed.

Several local cities have already voted to support Florez's bill.

Audio: http://www.bakersfield.com/static/audio/florezsludge.mp3

http://www.bakersfield.com/local/story/5399254p-5412568c.html

Kern County cities take action against human waste trucking

2005-03-29T17:52:00.000-08:00

Kern County cities take action against human waste trucking

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. Kern County cities are taking action to stop a practice that's irritated local residents for a long time -- the trucking of treated human waste from Southern California into local farmland.

The county already adopted a partial ban on the practice.

But now cities like Taft, Delano, Tehachapi, Wasco, Shafter and Arvin are rushing to support a bill proposed by state Senator Dean Florez which would stop the shipment of sludge across county lines.

Sanitation districts in Los Angeles are suing, arguing the ban is discriminatory, since Kern County cities themselves apply their sludge to their land.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Sewage Sludge Standards Need New Scientific Basis

2005-03-29T15:44:00.000-08:00

Date: July 2, 2002
Contacts: Jennifer Burris, Media Relations Associate
Andrea Durham, Media Relations Assistant
(202) 334-2138; e-mail

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sewage Sludge Standards Need New Scientific Basis

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's standards that govern using treated sewage sludge on soil are based on outdated science, says a new report from the National Academies' National Research Council. The agency should update its standards using improved methods for assessing health risks, and should further study whether treated sewage sludge causes health problems for workers who apply it to land and for residents who live nearby, added the committee that wrote the report. More rigorous enforcement of the standards is needed as well.

"There is a serious lack of health-related information about populations exposed to treated sewage sludge," said committee chair Thomas A. Burke, professor, department of health policy and management, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore. "To ensure public health protection, EPA should investigate allegations of adverse health effects and update the science behind its chemical and pathogen standards."

Under a 1993 Clean Water Act rule designed to protect public health and the environment, sewage sludge can be applied to land if it is sufficiently treated to limit concentrations of certain chemicals and reduce disease-causing pathogens. Sewage sludge that meets these standards is referred to as biosolids. Depending on the extent of treatment, biosolids may be applied as a fertilizer where there is limited public exposure to it, such as farms and forests, or on sites with more public contact such as parks, golf courses, lawns, and home gardens. Since 1992, when a ban on ocean dumping was instituted, applying biosolids to land has reduced the amount of sewage sludge that would otherwise need to be buried in landfills or incinerated. About 5.6 million tons of sewage sludge are used or disposed of each year in the United States, and 60 percent of that is used for land application.

Methods for assessing the health risks posed by exposure to chemicals have evolved substantially since the 1993 biosolids rule was established. In addition, EPA used an unreliable 1988 survey to identify hazardous chemicals in sewage sludge when it set the standards, and other chemicals have since been found to be of potential concern. A new survey and revised risk assessments are needed, the committee said. The revised risk assessments also should reflect the potential for regional variations in climate, water flow, and biosolids characteristics, and should be designed to protect individuals against realistic maximum exposures.

The committee agreed with EPA's general approach for regulating pathogens, which requires the level of disease-causing microorganisms to be reduced through treatment of sewage sludge and restrictions on use of land immediately after biosolids are applied. However, the agency should use new pathogen-detection technology to ensure that treatments are reliable. Microbial risk assessments that include the possibility of secondary transmission of disease, such as through person-to-person contact or through food, air, or water, also should be developed. As is the case with chemicals, a new national survey of pathogens in sewage sludge should be carried out.

To assure the public that biosolids regulations are being followed, EPA should increase its efforts to ensure that companies producing biosolids meet the regulatory requirements to remove or neutralize chemicals and pathogens. EPA also needs to ensure that biosolids are applied in accordance with special management practices. In certain cases, biosolids can be applied with the understanding that the land cannot be used for a specified period to allow pathogens to fall below detectable levels. However, EPA has not been verifying if pathogens are dying off, whether the land is being used for agriculture or grazing, or whether public access is adequately restricted. Field data are needed in these cases, the committee said.

EPA also should conduct studies of the potential health risks, or lack thereof, to workers and residential populations exposed to biosolids. The report cites anecdotal reports linking biosolids to adverse health effects, ranging from mild allergic reactions to more severe chronic conditions, along with public concern about those reports. The committee also cited a lack of population studies on individuals exposed to biosolids, such as farmers and nearby residents. Studies on workers exposed to raw sewage are not an adequate substitute for studies of populations exposed to biosolids in the environment, the committee concluded. More funding and staff are needed to support EPA's regulation of biosolids. Some of these resources should go toward the needed research.

The study was sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. It is a private, nonprofit institution that provides science and technology advice under a congressional charter. A committee roster follows.

The report Biosolids Applied to Land: Advancing Standards and Practices is available on the Internet at http://www.nap.edu. Copies will be available for purchase later this summer from the National Academy Press; tel. (202) 334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242. Reporters may obtain a pre-publication copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed above).

Local company sells sludge to other counties

2005-03-29T10:23:00.000-08:00

Local company sells sludge to other counties

Updated 03/28/05
BAKERSFIELD - The bid by Synagro Technologies to build a new biosolids processing plant near Taft created controversy earlier this month, and it turned the spotlight briefly on an ancient technology that is increasing demand in today’s modern world.

Composting, the ancient manipulation of decomposition, is a conversion of raw organic wastes into fertilizer.

Leaves, grass clippings, food wastes, animal manure, and even sewage sludge can be used to make compost.

The decaying material creates heat, which kills harmful pathogens.

The end product is a nutrient-rich soil amendment widely used in agriculture and landscaping in the valley,

For 16 years, McCarthy Family Farms near Lost Hills has been making compost.

CEO Wilson Nolan runs the farm’s subsidiary, San Joaquin Composting, the only composting site in the county permitted to accept biosolids.

Most of their sludge, an estimated 406,000 tons for this whole year, comes from outside the county.

“We track every load in terms of its source, and make sure there's a chemical analysis on file for every source of material that comes on site,” said Nolan.

Sludge is processed over a 15-day treatment period.

Huge machines mix and turn windrows to control moisture and heat content.

A minimum temperature of 131 degrees is required to kill the bad bugs commonly found in sewage sludge.

The facility accepts all types of sludge, not just Class A.

The county’s ban on land application of Class B biosolids doesn’t apply at San Joaquin Composting.

“We don't land-apply so we're not affected by the county's land application ban.” said Nolan. “Eighty-eight percent of the compost made here leaves the county.”

San Joaquin Composting makes its money in tipping fees from sewer districts for accepting the waste, and by selling the finished product, mostly to farmers.

“We produce about 160,000 tons of high-quality product a year,” said Nolan.

The process will soon change at San Joaquin Composting.

New air quality regulations will one day force the company to reduce emissions that contribute to smog.

Plans are in place for expensive upgrades that will put the entire process in-doors.

In the meantime, Sen. Dean Florez is pushing ahead with his bill that if passed, would ban the exporting of biosolids by one county to another. Florez said county policies have turned Kern County into a dumping ground for sludge. If his bill becomes law, it could put his business out of business.

Nolan agrees with Florez’s heightened awareness of the biosolids management controversy, and he said he welcomes added scrutiny of how the county handles treated human waste.

TV-17 will be focusing on the Florez bill and other key biosolids issues Thursday at 7 p.m. in an hour-long discussion featuring leading experts in the field from both sides of the fence. Some of our guests will be coming to Bakersfield form the East Coast to discuss the issue.

Video: http://video.kget.com/viewer/content/special.php?Art_ID=5667&Format_ID=2&BitRate_ID=8&Contract_ID=8&Obj_ID=4

http://www.kget.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=00C637FB-F1C9-4F05-A095-5F542BF8AE83

Hypocrites on sludge? Cities say no

2005-03-29T10:22:00.001-08:00

Hypocrites on sludge? Cities say no
Kern towns spread own biosolids, but dealing with outside stuff different, they say
By VIC POLLARD, Californian Sacramento Bureau
e-mail: vpollard@bakersfield.com

Posted: Thursday March 24th, 2005, 11:05 PM
Last Updated: Thursday March 24th, 2005, 11:29 PM

More and more outlying cities in Kern County are calling for a total ban on Southern California sewage sludge being spread on local farmland.
What those cities aren't talking about is that they do exactly the same thing with their own sludge.

That upsets the sewage agencies to the south, who say they are being victimized by a double standard.

"The biosolids that are generated within the county are able to be land-applied," said David Hyde, an attorney for sanitation districts in Los Angeles County.

That is one of the issues the urban agencies are pressing in a lawsuit attempting to overturn a partial ban on imports already adopted by the county.

However, city and county officials say local treatment plants produce a small fraction of the amount being trucked into Kern. They have no qualms about doing what they want Southern California to do: Keep the stuff at home.

Like a political wildfire, local cities are rushing to endorse a bill by state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, that would ban the shipment of biosolids, as sludge is more politely known, across county lines.

It has drawn support from councils in Taft, Delano, Tehachapi, Wasco, Shafter and Arvin.

The Bakersfield council and the county Board of Supervisors have not yet taken a position.

The bill would dam the rising river of sludge being trucked into Kern County from the Los Angeles region.

Officials are increasingly concerned about potential pollution from the practice of spreading the sludge over farmland as fertilizer. It can't be used on food crops, but there is concern that it could contaminate precious underground drinking water supplies.

Several years ago, Kern County banned all but the most highly treated sludge from being spread on private farmland outside city limits.

Most of the sludge coming out of local city treatment plants is of lower quality, with a higher pollution potential. And the cities spread it on farmland within their boundaries, avoiding a clash with the county restriction.

But most local officials make a sharp distinction between the few thousand tons of biosolids they produce each year and the half million tons being carted over the Tehachapi Mountains annually.

Even county Supervisor Michael Rubio, an opponent of imported sewage and a supporter of the Florez bill, said the locally produced sludge is a secondary problem.

"There's no question that we need to do something about our biosolids, compost it or something, but it's hard to do that when you're focusing on the huge amounts coming in from Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties," Rubio said.

Nevertheless, the county's Resource Management Agency director, David Price III, said the cities' practice of spreading lower-quality biosolids on farmland conflicts with county policy.

"We decided we wanted only the highest-treated material," Price said. "But we don't have any authority over the cities, so as a result, they have to make their own decisions."

Price said the county could take enforcement action against a city that was disposing of low-quality sludge on private land in unincorporated areas, but he knows of none that are.

Officials of cities who could be contacted Thursday said they are spreading the material on farmland within their boundaries.

Bakersfield produces about 2,000 tons of lower-quality sludge annually, said its public works chief, Raul Rojas. It is spread on a 5,000-acre city-owned farm in southeast Bakersfield.

But Rojas said the amount of sewage produced by Bakersfield and other local cities does not pose a significant pollution threat.

"The amounts that we have are so minuscule compared to what is coming in," he said. "It's hardly anything."

Other cities have similar situations.

* Delano, which also produces lower-quality sludge, spreads it on city-owned land it leases to a farmer who grows alfalfa on it, said interim Public Works Director John Wankum.

* Taft puts out about 50 tons a year that is composted to a higher quality that can used on private farmland in the county, and is, according to Gary Dabbs, the public works director.

Dabbs echoed other local officials who insisted their sludge disposal practices don't conflict with the import ban proposed in Sacramento.

"I think what the Florez bill is trying to do is stop the importation," Dabbs said. "Obviously your sludge has got to go somewhere."

http://www.bakersfield.com/local/story/5386978p-5403390c.html

Maricopa votes against sludge

2005-03-29T10:22:00.000-08:00

Maricopa votes against sludge

By Doug Keeler, Midway Driller City Editor
Maricopa added its voice to a chorus of cities protesting the dumping of Southern California sewage sludge in Kern County.

The Maricopa Council unanimously passed a resolution supporting State Sen. Dean Florez' bill to ban the transportation of biosolids across state lines.

Mayor Virgil Bell said Southern California shouldn't use Kern County as a dumping ground.

"They ought to deal with their own sludge and let Kern County take care of Kern County," mayor Virgil Bell said.

"It's a health hazard, a hazard to our water bank and a hazard to our way of life,' said Rudy Salas Jr.

The resolution wasn't only sending a message to Sacramento - it was going to the board of supervisors.

"With the support of Maricopa and the support of the other cities, we can go back to the board of supervisors and say 99 percent of the cities in Kern County oppose this," Salas said.

Bell said if the topic comes up again, he would take time off work and speak to the supervisors himself.

Maricopa joined Taft and many other Kern County cities in supporting SB926, which was introduced in the legislature by Florez in February.

Salas said 37 percent of the biosolids produced in the state are dumped in Kern County.

The county only produces 2 percent of the state total.

An estimated 500,000 tons of sludge is brought into the county each year.

The controversy over sludge dumping in the county heated up earlier this year when plans for a compositing facility to be built east of Taft, which were actually approved more than two years ago, triggered a protest before the board of supervisors.

A delegation from Taft, joined by representatives of other cities, successfully convinced the board of supervisors to reject a request by Synagro to use tax free municipal bonds to finance construction of the composting plant on South lake Road.

But Synagro officials plan to go ahead and build the plant.

Construction is scheduled to start in May.

Maricopa City Administrator Tom Davis suggested taxiing all the biosolids being bought into the county.

"This could be a source of replacement revenue for what the state takes away," Davis said. "I think Los Angeles and Orange County would be willing to pay a lot of money to have us take their waste," he said.

But Bell was against even that proposal.

"We wouldn't want that kind of money. We want our health," the mayor said.

Bell said he was concerned not only about the sludge, but the added air pollution from all the trucks that bring the sludge into the county.

http://www.taftmidwaydriller.com/articles/2005/03/25/news/news02.txt

Three more cities support sludge bill

2005-03-29T10:21:00.001-08:00

Three more cities support sludge bill

Updated 03/24/05
BAKERSFIELD - Three more Kern County cities added themselves to the list of places who don’t want sewage sludge trucked in from Los Angeles.

This week, Arvin, Tehachapi, and Delano voted to get behind California Senate Bill 926.

“I can't see why anyone who lives in the Valley and has any idea of how much sludge is being trucked in every day, could possibly be against Senate Bill 926,” said Arvin City Councilmember Joet Stoner.

Stoner and all four of her colleagues on Arvin’s council threw their support behind the bill Tuesday, a day after Tehachapi and Delano did the same.

Introduced by Sen. Dean Florez, the bill would prevent the further dumping of treated human waste in Kern County.

“We want to make sure whether or not we have a handle on whether we get it one day,” said Hill.

Taft, Wasco, and Shafter already endorsed Florez’s bill.

Maricopa, Bakersfield, and Ridgecrest and considering lending their support.

Some Bakersfield residents hope they will. “We shouldn't be receiving garbage from another area, and we don't know what's in it,” said resident Dwain Scott. “I don't think it's going to do our soil any good.”

Officials on both sides of the issue will share what they know in a televised forum to be aired March 31.

The 17 News In-Depth: Dumping Ground Forum will be hosted by TV-17’s Jim Scott. It will air on TV-17 at 7 p.m.

Video: http://video.kget.com/viewer/content/special.php?Art_ID=5632&Format_ID=2&BitRate_ID=8&Contract_ID=2&Obj_ID=4

http://www.kget.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=4E640AF8-2A5F-4AF1-96FC-6D5D4C8C4950

Not in our county, cities say of sludge traffic

2005-03-29T10:21:00.000-08:00

Not in our county, cities say of sludge traffic
Delano, Tehachapi, Arvin join cities supporting bill to keep sewage out of Kern

By CHRISTINA SOSA and GRETCHEN WENNER, Californian staff writers
e-mail: csosa@bakersfield.com and gwenner@bakersfield.com

Posted: Wednesday March 23rd, 2005, 11:20 PM
Last Updated: Wednesday March 23rd, 2005, 11:42 PM

Elected officials all over Kern County have said no to imported sludge this month, with three more cities voting this week to endorse a state Senate bill banning the transportation of biosolids over county lines.
Delano and Tehachapi city councils both voted unanimously on Monday to back a bill written by state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter. Arvin threw its support behind the bill unanimously on Tuesday. Taft, Wasco and Shafter have already given support.

Florez introduced Senate Bill 926 in February in an effort to halt the nearly half-million tons of treated human waste trucked into Kern from Southern California sewage districts each year.

Florez said recently he believes Kern County is being targeted for the disposal of biosolids, and though the entire county is not directly affected right now, any city may soon find the sludge in its own back yard.

Taft Mayor Cliff Thompson agrees. Taft is right in the biosolids firing line because a new sludge processing plant approved to be built seven miles outside the city by Synagro Technologies Inc. of Houston.

Taft's council voted to support the bill March 15, the same evening councils in Wasco and Shafter unanimously gave endorsements.

But California City officials rejected the bill in a 3-to-2 vote March 15.

It's not that California City is particularly fond of sludge.

"Everybody's in consensus that we don't want this stuff over here," said City Clerk Helen Dennis. "I don't care how they clean it."

Officials there just want to wait for the final version before they endorse the bill, Dennis said, adding she hopes the issue will return to the council's agenda in the future.

Maricopa, Bakersfield and Ridgecrest will also consider endorsements, according to Florez's office.

Local support can translate into action in Sacramento, Florez said.

Florez's bill is likely to face fierce opposition from powerful sewage districts in Los Angeles, Orange and other counties. Because it would prohibit transport of sludge across county lines without special permission, the proposed law could also be frowned on by Bay Area districts, which also truck waste to rural counties.

The districts are also contributors to a sewage coalition that regularly lobbies Sacramento lawmakers.

Sludge issues have recently made news in Kern after several years of quiet.

County supervisors in the late 1990s voted to ban all but the most highly treated sludge from Kern's farmland. Before that, Southland utility districts had apparently been carting it over the Grapevine under the radar of local officials. Currently, a coalition of waste districts is suing Kern over its ban.

Most recently, news of the Synagro plant surprised even Taft officials, who didn't know about the plans until last month.

Sludge opponents worry the treated waste might trigger serious health threats. They say antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals, as well as chemicals and heavy metals from industrial sewage, are present even in highly treated waste. They also criticize federal and state regulations, saying they don't guarantee the product is safe.

Proponents say biosolids are a good way to recycle waste. They say it is a beneficial fertilizer.

http://www.bakersfield.com/local/story/5384435p-5401467c.html

California City repels sludge bill in current form

2005-03-29T10:20:00.000-08:00

California City repels sludge bill in current form
The Bakersfield Californian

Posted: Wednesday March 16th, 2005, 11:20 PM
Last Updated: Wednesday March 16th, 2005, 11:48 PM

The California City Council voted Tuesday night 3-2 against a bill by state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, that would ban the import of biosolids across county lines.
California City was one of four towns considering a vote in support of the anti-sludge dumping bill Tuesday night, and the only town to oppose it. Shafter, Wasco and Taft all unanimously supported the bill. Sludge is processed human waste.

California City Councilman Bill Dempsey, one of three opposed to the bill, said his vote was against the bill and not for sludge delivery in California City. He said the bill would have a lot of changes and when it was finalized, he wanted to look at it again.

Dempsey said he's very opposed to importing sludge to California City.

California City Mayor Larry Adams said he was surprised at the outcome of the vote and called Florez's office to apologize. Adams said two companies have expressed interest in buying land in California City for an agricultural preserve, which he fears will be turned into a sludge dump.

"I have no idea why a county, i.e. Los Angeles and Orange, would think it's OK to take something they create and dump it on someone else's county," Adams said.

"I'm certainly not in favor of it and I don't want it in my community," he said.

http://www.bakersfield.com/local/story/5365740p-5385272c.html

Some Kern cities just say no to trucked-in sludge

2005-03-29T10:18:00.000-08:00

Some Kern cities just say no to trucked-in sludge
By CHRISTINA SOSA, Californian staff writer
e-mail: csosa@bakersfield.com

Posted: Tuesday March 15th, 2005, 10:55 PM
Last Updated: Tuesday March 15th, 2005, 11:31 PM

Several Kern County cities thought about saying "not in our back yard" to sludge on Tuesday evening.
Wasco, Taft, Shafter and California City all had agenda items considering supporting a bill by state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, that would ban the import of biosolids across county lines.

Shafter and Wasco voted unanimously to back the bill. Decisions from Taft and California City councils were not available as of press time.

"The inter-county transportation of sludge is just ludicrous," said Taft Mayor Cliff Thompson. "We want to show him (Florez) that we appreciate the work he is doing."

Florez introduced Senate Bill 926 in February in an effort to halt the nearly half-million tons of treated human waste that roll over the Grapevine into Kern County each year.

Florez said the individual cities' support of the bill sends a strong message to the county Board of Supervisors to pull back the welcome mat on Southern California's sewage.

"Kern County is being targeted," Florez said. "California City might be next. Wasco, Shafter, we've already seen what they've done with dairies."

The Wasco council considered supporting the bill because Wasco residents don't want to live near manure-producing dairies, and they don't want to live near sludge either, said council member Daniel Espitia.

"Our concerns are water quality again, and the quality of life," Espitia said. "Why here again? Why to the valley?"

Espitia said that though a new biosolid dumping ground is planned to go in near Taft, not Wasco, every city in Kern County needs to be worried about the sludge.

"We do have to stand together and show solidarity on this issue," Espitia said.

Taft's concerns are immediate, because a processing plant has already been approved to be built about 7 miles outside the small city.

Synagro Technologies Inc. was granted a permit to build a biosolids plant more than two years ago. The plant will be taking in about 500 tons a day of human sewage from Southern California starting early next year.

But not if Thompson can help it. He said that if the Senate bill doesn't pass, Taft officials will try to go after Synagro's conditional-use permit from the county Board of Supervisors.

http://www.bakersfield.com/local/story/5363021p-5383121c.html

Mired in protest

2005-03-29T10:17:00.000-08:00

Mired in protest
Passionate residents speak at meeting against sewage site
By GRETCHEN WENNER and VIC POLLARD, Californian staff writers
e-mail: gwenner@bakersfield.com; vpollard@bakersfield.com

Posted: Tuesday March 1st, 2005, 11:30 PM
Last Updated: Tuesday March 1st, 2005, 11:48 PM

First, the outcome.

Kern County supervisors Tuesday unanimously rejected a proposed $35 million tax-exempt, low-interest bond to finance a sludge plant outside Taft.

The 5-0 denial means Synagro Technologies Inc. will have to find new financing for its sewage composting project.

The so-called South Kern Industrial Center plant was scheduled to open early next year. The unbuilt facility is permitted to accept 397,000 wet tons of treated human sewage, or biosolids, a year.

The sludge would be trucked into Kern from Southern California communities.

Now, the drama.

Before the 2 p.m. session, Bernice Bonillas stood with a toilet seat around her neck outside the big glass doors of the downtown county administrative building. She offered anyone walking up the steps a new toilet brush, cardboard store tags still attached.

Bonillas, a local Democratic party leader, was one of a group protesting sludge imports from the Southland.

Some 450,000 wet tons of sludge were trucked into Kern from Southern California last year alone.

While the pastel-handled brushes were left outside during the meeting, many attendees wore fluorescent pink stickers the size of a business card turned vertical, stamped with a toilet, lid open. A black circle slashed by a bold diagonal line, the universal symbol for "not this," wrapped around the image.

About 20 people spoke against the project. More watched.

No residents spoke in favor of the sludge plant or the proposed tax-exempt bond.

Some quotes:

* "The only winners will be the ones (who) laugh at Kern County," said Paul Linder, a Taft councilman, who also suggested a "steaming pile of manure" be put on Kern County's official seal.

* "Any time I hear the words 'probably' and 'hazards,' I get worried," said Tom Mayo, a Vietnam veteran who said he was speaking for the silent majority.

* "This could be the Wal-Mart of recycling," said Bakersfield resident Lloyd Kingham.

* If this is such a great project, asked Dave Noerr of the Taft City Council, "Why is this chamber not full of people from down south begging them to come back?"

* "I am horrified at the direction we are going with the importation of sludge," said Cyrille Duzen, who was born in 1917 and said she'd seen a lot of history, including the Great Depression and World War II.

* "I can't believe it. I just can't believe it," said Joe Esnoz, sheep rancher and a 72-year resident of Lost Hills, referring to decisions made by supervisors in recent years. Esnoz complained about odors and dust from the San Joaquin Composting Inc. biosolids facility on Holloway Road, which is permitted for 780,000 wet tons of sludge annually. "Why don't you go out there (to Holloway) and have a picnic, a luncheon, out there?"

The board speaks

Before the vote, even veteran board-watchers wondered which way ayes and nays would swing.

In the end, supervisors generally agreed the project didn't provide enough of a "substantial benefit" to residents to earn the board's support for the tax-exempt bond.

Chairman Ray Watson said his rejection came for different reasons.

"I can understand why people really are concerned about the fact we are accepting someone else's problem," Watson said.

But, he added, we consume things here manufactured in other parts of the world that stick those folks with dangerous waste.

Kern residents don't need to take the part of the victim, he said.

"I do think that Synagro is adding some public benefit to the existing condition," he said.

Supervisor Barbara Patrick, who along with Jon McQuiston was a board member in fall 2002 when the plant's county permits were approved, said she'd rather see waste processed at a state-of-the-art facility than be spread over farmland.

But she objected to the tax-exempt bond, in part because it would serve Southern California wastewater districts currently suing Kern for its ban on low-quality sludge.

Supervisor Don Maben, in typically quick fashion, said the project "is not a good use of our public bonding ability," especially when the same money could help build affordable homes for some 5,000 residents on a waiting list.

As expected, Supervisor Michael Rubio voted against the loan. He said after the meeting the outcome was a victory for the people, many of whom took off work to voice their opinions.

After the board's vote, applause filled the chambers.

Meanwhile, up north

Hours earlier Tuesday, the agency that would have issued the $35 million bond had already dealt the Synagro project a setback after objections raised by state Sen. Dean Florez, the Shafter Democrat.

The obscure California Statewide Communities Development Authority rejected a staff recommendation to give the project a preliminary, informal stamp of approval.

Florez told the panel he was concerned the plant could add significantly to the valley's already severe air pollution problems.

Members of the authority, made up of city and county officials from around the state, agreed.

"I'm not ready to make a decision," said Chairman Chris McKenzie.

The panel agreed to consider the issue again at a future meeting after hearing the outcome of Tuesday's vote by Kern supervisors.

"This is a great day for valley residents, especially those who fought to be heard on this issue," Florez said.

A large crowd, most opposed to
the planned biosolids plant near
Taft, was in attendance at
the Board of Supervisors meeting.

http://www.bakersfield.com/local/story/5326640p-5353246c.html

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Sludge deal takes Taft by surprise

2005-03-29T10:15:00.000-08:00

Sludge deal takes Taft by surprise
Mayor says city leaders were unaware of county plan to allow sewage facility nearby
By GRETCHEN WENNER, Californian staff writer
e-mail: gwenner@bakersfield.com

Posted: Friday February 25th, 2005, 11:05 PM
Last Updated: Friday February 25th, 2005, 11:46 PM

Taft's mayor spit out his coffee Friday morning when he picked up the paper. Cliff Thompson had never heard of the huge sludge composting facility set to go up just outside his city. Nor had anyone else at City Hall, as far as he could tell.
By 10:30 a.m., Thompson was in downtown Bakersfield speaking at a press conference thrown by state Sen. Dean Florez, the Shafter Democrat.

"We don't need to grow with a dump right in our back yard," Thompson said. "We oppose this vehemently."

The chance to voice such opposition, however, has nearly run out.

That's because the Synagro Technologies Inc. sewage processing plant already has county permits. The Board of Supervisors granted those more than two years ago, and once those permits are on the books projects are nearly impossible to derail.

The plant is on track to absorb 500 tons a day of human sewage trucked in from Southern California starting early next year.

Nevertheless, Thompson and Florez will try slipping a wrench in the machinery Tuesday, when supervisors take on another Synagro (pronounced SINN-uh-groh) issue. It may be their last chance.

The encounter will likely end up a head-on clash of galloping state senate bills, finance schemes and corporate gloss.

Florez, who has two pending senate bills that could affect the project, will ask board members to postpone voting on a state-backed $35 million bond to finance construction of the plant.

The county, he said, failed to give proper public notice of a Feb. 10 debt-committee meeting where the tax-exempt, low-interest loan plan was first approved.

What's more, he said, supervisors will be squandering the county's good name by vouching for Synagro if they approve the bond, even though Kern won't actually be loaning the money.

Now the lawmaker, who already introduced Senate Bill 926 to halt the transport of sludge across county lines, is tweaking another piece of proposed legislation to tighten up the tax-exempt bond.

"This group has been very clever," Florez said of Synagro, a publicly traded company headquartered in Houston. "They're trying to do something they couldn't do through the state."

Synagro previously applied for a $58 million tax-exempt bond through the California Pollution Control Financing Authority in May 2003, meeting records show.

Those funds came under fire last fall when the Los Angeles Times reported the state-backed loans had paid to expand and relocate megadairies, including some in Kern.

Florez said Synagro is now applying for similar funding through the California Statewide Communities Development Authority.

far, the authority has approved bonds for affordable housing and similar economic development projects, he said.

Florez said he'll be widening his bond legislation, Senate Bill 931, to block the development authority from lending money to Synagro and similar companies.

But if county supervisors approve the bond plan Tuesday, that legal clamp will come too late to clip the biosolids plant, because the state usually rubber-stamps bonds with local government support.

Supervisor Ray Watson, whose district includes the southwestern part of the county, said people automatically get emotional whenever the word "biosolids" comes up.

"What happens on Tuesday really has very little, if any, impact on biosolids operations" in Kern, Watson said.

The plant will compost sewage that will be bagged for fertilizer and spread on golf courses and some ag land, he said. It will not be spread over the valuable groundwater bank that has the Kern County Water Agency pushing for a change in sludge-spreading practices here, he said.

Watson didn't recall a $1,250 donation from Synagro to his campaign in 2003, but said he can't be bought.

"Whether it was $500 or $1 million, it would not influence my doing what I think is the right thing," he said.

"If we were ever presented with any evidence of harm that we could defend in court," Watson said, "I can assure you we would immediately proceed to ban that operation."

Synagro's project developer, Liz Ostoich, said the composting plant will reduce Kern's biosolids challenges. Processing of ag waste will cut down on ag burning, she said, which will help with air quality.

And overall imports won't increase from what they are currently, she said. Last year, more than 450,000 wet tons of sewage were trucked into Kern from Southern California.

While the plant is permitted to take in livestock and food waste, those will be rejected, Ostoich said. Only sewage and agriculture waste will be allowed.

About a quarter of the Synagro plant's output will be bagged and sold in home-improvement stores for fertilizer, she said.

The rest will be used for golf courses and horticulture, she said. Some could be shipped as far as Las Vegas, although some may be applied as fertilizer in Kern.

Sludge generators, including sanitation districts in Los Angeles and Orange counties, will pay Synagro $54 a ton to pick up, compost, bag and market the sewage.

Much of the facility will be covered and treated with air filters to minimize pollution and odors, she said. The company is committed to producing only the most highly treated, or Class A, product, she said, and is building "a very high-end facility."

Ostoich said Synagro has also agreed to treat Taft's wastewater for free.

For Thompson, the future facility conflicts with the city's expansion plans. The plant will be built 12 miles east of Taft, but the city's sphere of influence pushes those edges much closer.

City leaders have been planning to market their town as a retirement community. But with Kern becoming a destination for sludge, those plans could wither.

"We weren't aware of this issue until this morning," Thompson said, adding: "We'll be there in force Tuesday."

http://www.bakersfield.com/local/story/5316715p-5345868c.html

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