Biosolids Tracking Efforts a Jumble of Research With No Clear Answers

Nearly all scientists agree that sewage sludge can be beneficial if it is uncontaminated, as it is a rich source of phosphorus and nitrogen. It has two components — bacteria naturally present in organic matter, which can be somewhat removed depending on how the sludge is processed; and heavy metals and chemicals such as any of the 11 flame retardants, 72 pharmaceuticals, 28 metals, 25 steroids and hormones, and others that EPA tested for in its 2009 national sludge survey. It can also contain chemicals that no one is looking for, any one of the 80,000 that are made in the United States.

h/t to Jill Richardson at La Vida Locavore for bringing this to my attention.

In Decatur, Ala., chemical companies released perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) — the stuff that makes up nonstick cookware and has been linked to thyroid defects in pregnant women and to cancer in wastewater treatment plant workers — into the sewage system over a period of decades.

About 55 percent of sludge is applied in the United States on primarily grazing land. It is a multimillion-dollar industry in which utilities pay applier companies like Synagro to take the stuff and spray it on farmland as a potent fertilizer. They save money by avoiding costs of land filling or incineration. The farmer pays little or nothing.

Otherwise, ummm…we should be studying this more…but if there were problems surely somebody would have noticed?

And it’s so convenient…and people are just being fussy because it’s sewage.

And actually we are kind of collecting data, but nobody has any plans to do anything especial with it.

“A lot of this is just gathering information to find out what this is going to say,” said Connie Roberts, special assistant to the director of the water protection division for EPA’s Region 4, which covers Alabama.

And just what exactly is *that* supposed to mean?

Oh, and people have been reporting problems for years, but no one can say for sure that there really are risks.

And, um; we should really study this more.

And you’re all just making stuff up because you think sewage is icky.

Oh, and there are people working on soliciting phone calls from people worried about this, and using “tools” to, er, well, not encourage them to think sludge is the cause of their problems (shocked! Shocked!)

Oh, and there’s no funding to do sludge-related work. Well, of course not. That would be silly. Frivolous, even!