False claims about the nature and safety of Class A sewage sludge/biosolids

The April 23 Washington Post article about the Blue Plains Sewage Treatment Plant Upgrade contains a number of false claims about the nature and safety of Class A sewage sludge/biosolids. Class A contains robust pathogens that have not been killed by the new process and which can regrow in cool and moist climates. It also contains an array of toxic metals and synthetic chemicals that are neither regulated nor monitored, including some that are highly toxic and can harm organisms in very small doses.

Every month, every industry, institution, and business in the Washington DC area is permitted to discharge 33 pounds of hazardous waste into Blue Plains. As these industrial pollutants are removed from the waste water, they concentrate in the resulting biosolids. To compare sludge with toothpaste and claim it is safe to put in your mouth is irresponsible. There is no similarity between pre-industrial night soil and modern sewage sludge. Field studies indicate that sludge pollutants can be absorbed by plants and get into milk of dairy cows that graze on sludged pastures.

There is nothing “forward looking” or “green” about spreading industrial waste on farms or in gardens.

Blue Plains upgrade could produce valuable farm fertilizer, but critics are wary – The Washington Post

By Darryl Fears,

After moving tons of earth for an expansion, Stafford Regional Airport in Virginia faced an embarrassing problem: severe and seemingly irreversible baldness. Virtually nothing grew on its dusty, damaged land.

The airport’s worried manager, Ed Wallis, tried different treatments before he was advised to consult with officials at theBlue Plains Advanced Water Treatment Plant, a sprawling facility at the southern tip of the District that processes 375 million gallons of the area’s wastewater per day.

Airport officials liked what they saw and began accepting a dark substance called a biosolid from Blue Plains. Five months later, grass started to sprout. A year later, it was thigh-high.

“It was unbelievable,” Wallis said.

That transformation a decade ago is a legend at Blue Plains, the first thing officials from the plant mentioned recently while promoting theirbiosolid fertilizer. That’s a fancy scientific marketing name that masks what the biosolids truly are — sludge made primarily from human waste.

Probably the world’s original fertilizer, this cleaned and treated version of what was long known as “night soil” may well loom large in the future, too.