AMSA Regulatory Alert (RA 03-12)

To: Members & Affiliates, Biosolids Management Committee
From: National Office
Date: October 29, 2003
Subject: AMSA, MUNICIPAL COALITION URGE EPA TO REJECT BIOSOLIDS PETITION
Reference: RA 03-12

On October 7, 2003, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) sent a petition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) seeking a moratorium on the land application of biosolids. The CFS petition made many misleading statements, most notably that biosolids have been shown to cause harm to people, livestock, and the environment.

In direct response to this petition, the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies (AMSA), The National League of Cities, The U.S .Conference of Mayors, the Water Environment Federation and other key municipal organizations sent EPA’s Acting Administrator Marianne Horinko a letter asking that the petition be denied on the following grounds:

• Beneficial use of properly managed biosolids through land application to farms, reclamation of disturbed lands, and use in turf maintenance and home gardening is a safe and time-tested recycling practice, which is regulated pursuant to EPA’s Part 503 program.

• The safety of beneficial use of properly managed biosolids has been underscored by decades of scientific work, including two National Academy of Sciences reviews. Namely, the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences recently conducted a comprehensive review of the science underlying EPA’s Part 503 Rule, the federal regulations governing biosolids. In the NRC report, Biosolids Applied to Land: Advancing Standards and Practices (2002), it was concluded that “there is no documented scientific evidence that the Part 503 Rule has failed to protect public health.”

• Biosolids recycling is a successful component of America’s clean water program and, along with biosolids incineration and landfilling, provides a safe and viable means to manage this resource.

• Petitioners’ allegations that biosolids have been shown to injure animals or humans are legally unsubstantiated and run counter to existing science.

• EPA has met and continues to meet its obligations to update the science and regulation of biosolids, including its recent final rulemaking that dioxins in land-applied biosolids do not pose an actionable human health threat. See AMSA’s Regulatory Alert on this issue at http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/private/regalerts/ra03-11.cfm.

In the coalition’s response, AMSA and other stakeholders reiterated the fact that thousands of local governments throughout the United States rely on land application of biosolids for environmentally beneficial and economic management of sewage sludge. Also noted in the response letter was the fact that beneficial use of biosolids has undergone intensive scrutiny by EPA and the academic community and repeatedly has been deemed safe by objective scientific researchers. AMSA, however, does believe that further scientific study of biosolids is critical to continue to reassure the public that land-applied biosolids are safe. To this end, AMSA believes that EPA’s plan for addressing the recommendations from the NRC’s report and the Agency’s review of pollutants in biosolids, both due by January 2004, constitute key next steps toward reassuring the public of the safety and benefit of this important resource.

AMSA has long been actively involved in the biosolids arena. AMSA has participated in the thirteen-year-old lawsuit over EPA’s Clean Water Act biosolids regulations, Gearhart v. Horinko, which recently led to a no action final determination on the regulation of dioxin levels in land-applied biosolids. Additionally, AMSA filed extensive comments on EPA’s 1999 proposal to establish numeric limits for dioxins in land-applied biosolids and undertook a survey of dioxins concentrations in biosolids in an effort to improve the information EPA was using as the basis for its rulemaking. AMSA is also a founding member of the National Biosolids Partnership with the Water Environment Federation and EPA in a critical effort to improve biosolids management practices at publicly owned treatment works. AMSA will continue to work closely with EPA in a similar manner to ensure that the Part 503 program continues to reflect the best available science.

The municipal coalition’s response letter can be found on AMSA’s website at http://www.amsa-cleanwater.org/private/legreg/outreach/2003-10-24resp.pdf. For more information, please contact Chris Hornback, AMSA’s Director, Regulatory Affairs, at 202/833-9106 or chornback@amsa-cleanwater.org.