Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
Rule on Use of Treated Sludge as Fertilizer Expected to Be Finalized by EPA Today
A final action setting parameters for treated sewage sludge that is applied
to land as a fertilizer will be signed by the Environmental Protection Agency
Oct. 17, agency officials said.
In 1999, EPA proposed the so-called Part 503 rule, which would have limited the
land application of sewage sludge if it contained more than 300 parts per
trillion (ppt) toxic equivalents of dioxins (64 Fed. Reg. 72,045; 242 DEN A-8,
12/17/99).
Toxic equivalents are an internationally recognized approach to evaluating the
toxicity of dioxins. The agency is under court order to make a final
determination on that proposal by Oct. 17.
EPA is required under Section 405 of the Clean Water Act to set minimum
management standards for sludge that "protect public health and the environment
from any reasonably anticipated adverse effects of each pollutant."
Alan B. Rubin, in the health and ecological criteria division of the EPA Office
of Water, told BNA Oct. 15 the agency will either retain the 300 ppt limit or
take no action at all, although other options are possible. He would not say
what the agency planned to do.
The issue is especially important to municipalities that view land application
as an economical, efficient, and safe way to dispose of treated sludge from
their wastewater treatment plants. They have submitted data to EPA showing that
concentrations of dioxins in treated sludge have been declining and do not
present a significant risk to human health and the environment.
The Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies has said that few samples of
treated sludge, also known as biosolids, show dioxin levels in excess of 100 ppt
of toxic equivalents of dioxins.
Therefore, AMSA said in September 2002 comments on a notice of data
availability, "[A] regulatory limit or threshold that restricts the application
of biosolids with dioxins concentrations above these levels would have little or
no impact on decreasing the overall risks."
Environmental advocates disagreed, calling the 300 ppt limit unacceptably high.
"Dioxins are among the most toxic substances on Earth, and land-applied sewage
sludge is the largest source of dioxin exposure in the United States after
backyard barrel burning," the Natural Resources Defense Council said in an Oct.
16 statement.