Campbell County’s ‘sludge spread’

By Sarah Watson

Published: August 14, 2008

GLADYS — Just after 9 a.m., Chris Peot walked over to a steaming pile of biosolids, grabbed a chunk with his bare hands and broke it apart to show the material’s intimate details.

“I’m doing this just to show how innocuous this stuff is,” said Peot, biosolids director for the Blue Plains Wastewater Treatment plant in Washington, D.C.

Up close, the treated sewage sludge is fibrous, almost like blackened paper pulp. A few steps back, it looks like freshly exposed clay. From afar, it’s like a pile of mud that changes color and releases steam when exposed to the air.

Peot’s biosolids were applied for the first time to a Campbell County field Thursday. The spreading on the county’s only permitted field comes more than a year and a half after a bitter controversy erupted between Campbell citizens, farmers and officials.

The debate, which triggered a citizen proposal to ban corporations from spreading treated sewage sludge fertilizer on county farmland, ultimately resulted in a testing and monitoring ordinance in line with state standards.

On Thursday, 14 trucks each carrying about 25 tons of biosolids fresh from the Blue Plains plant dropped their loads. About the same amount will arrive today, Monday and Tuesday, Nutri-Blend Inc. spokesperson Mary Powell said. The material will treat about 134 acres of Gladys pastureland owned by G.D. Gilliam.

The inaugural application drew an unusually large crowd of officials from various agencies, including the Virginia Department of Health, Department of Environmental Quality and Campbell County.

The idea was for those in attendance to answer any questions from concerned citizens, Powell said.

“I thought today went pretty smooth,” said Campbell County environmental manager Brian Stokes. “I didn’t see any issues.”

Contrary to popular belief, the material is not spread in a solid thick layer, Peot said. Chunks are flung from a manure box spreader, which leaves a smattering of small black blobs on dry browned grass.

Instead of the anticipated sulfur-based sewage stench, the pile was ammonia-scented — get too close and the smell would bite as if one had been mopping the floor in a closed room. But just a few steps away, any odor was undetectable unless the light wind changed direction.

That odor is the result of the treatment process, Peot said. Not all biosolids are treated the same way and some wastewater plants produce sludge that has a very different odor profile, Peot said.

In January 2007, more than 400 concerned citizens overflowed the Rustburg Haberer Building to protest Nutri-Blend’s proposed permit modification to increase the amount of permitted land in the county to almost 3,000 acres.

Most were concerned that the sludge could contain toxins and harm the environment. Testing standards based on federal requirements examine a small amount of potential toxins, namely certain heavy metals that are easily detectable. Many organic compounds are only tested for on a quarterly basis, Peot said. He wants to increase that to once a month at the Blue Plains plant, but that hasn’t occurred.

Since the DEQ took over regulatory oversight in January from VDH, the proposed permit modification is all but dead because Nutri-Blend must apply for a new permit, Campbell County administrator David Laurrell told the Board of Supervisors in July.

Biosolids is the name for the solid remains from the wastewater treatment process. Once the suspended solids, including human waste and paper, have been isolated, it’s then treated with lime to kill 95 percent of pathogens and allow the material to decompose. The result is a slow-releasing nutrient fertilizer that’s free for farmers, Powell said.

Only about 6 percent of the sewage coming into the Blue Plains plant is industrial, including the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, which contributes ink and some heavy metal waste in permitted levels, Peot said. But the volume coming into the plant — enough to fill R.F.K. Stadium each day — dilutes any pollutant to negligible levels, Peot said.

New regulations implemented just before the DEQ switchover require nutrient management plans, a process usually reserved for other organic fertilizers such as poultry litter and manure. That plan, which Powell usually compiles, details exactly how much of the material is needed for the soil conditions and permitted crops.

The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority, which operates Blue Plains, contracts with an independent environmental consulting firm to monitor the material from its creation to when it’s spread on fields.

Maryland Environmental Service operations manager Ed Taylor said part of his work is to monitor the material’s odor and quality.

“We have the authority that if it doesn’t meet our standards, to send it back to Blue Plains or to a landfill,” Taylor said.

Peot added, “for a large program, it’s extremely unusual to have a presence in the field every day.”