In October 2005 JLARC published a first draft of its report, Review of Land Application of Biosolids in Virginia. Almost 100 pages long, this report was full of graphs and data regarding the amounts of BS spread in Virginia, its distribution, sources, public perception, and federal, state, and local oversight. It was a very professional and a useful summary. However, the JLARC report did not address important questions about the safety of BS.

In 2007 the General Assembly passed a number of bills that substantially altered the lay of the regulatory landscape in Virginia as far as land application of BS goes. Here’s a LINK to a table summarizing those bills.

House Joint Resolution 694 was one of the packet of 2007 bills passed by the General Assembly. It required the Secretary of Natural Resources and the Secretary of Health and Human Resources to convene "a panel of experts to study the impact of biosolids [i.e. BS] (sewage sludge) on human health and the environment." The panel was directed to "consider the typical contaminant concentrations and application rates" of BS in answering the following four questions.

1. Are citizen-reported health symptoms associated with the land application of biosolids [i.e. BS]?

2. Do odors from biosolids [i.e. BS] impact human health and well-being and property values?

3. Do biosolids [i.e. BS]-associated contaminants accumulate in food (plant crops and livestock), and can they affect water quality?

4. What are the effects of an accumulation of biosolids [i.e. BS]-associated contaminants in wildlife?

I refer to these as "statutory questions" even though a resolution is not, technically, a statute. (Count them, there are 4. The Report answers 5.)

"Convene" is a pretty loose word, but HJR 694 provided some guidance on who should be included. In the end, the panel was chosen by people and methods that remain obscure. I don’t know the precise breakdown of pro vs. anti-sludge participants on the panel, but I do recognize individuals on the panel who are clearly pro-sludge and associated with Synagro and various pro-BS organizations. Chief among these is the Sheik of Sludge, Alan Rubin. Rubin was nominated to the panel by Va. Delegate Chuck Caputo, to whom Rubin had donated thousands of dollars according to VAPA.org. It would be a pretty fair guess that that money came directly or indirectly from the sludgers or their phony fronts, like the Va. Biosolids [i.e. BS] Council, which is a shill for Synagro. LINK.

Here is part of what I had to say about the Sheik on Dec31,07, just after he was appointed to the "expert panel". The full rant is here. LINK

Sheik of Sludge, indeed. From the very get-go Rubin has been a tireless advocate of spreading BS from sea to shining sea. He is, arguably, more responsible than any other single person in the country for a million tons of human fecal products, laced with unknown amounts of industrial toxins, that have been spread on Virginia farmland and forests. For Rubin is the self-proclaimed author of the EPA’s BS regulations – the 503 Rules – which were promulgated in 1993 despite failing the EPA’s internal peer-review process. In sworn testimony before the US Labor Dept. in April, 1999, Rubin admitted that his professional reputation is linked to the 503 Rules. Rubin has a dog in this fight – protecting his professional reputation and his 503 Rules. Rubin is perhaps best known in the BS world for his use of heavy handed tactics against those who disagreed with him or who questioned the safety of BS when he was a major domo in the EPA. On September 27, 1999 Time magazine reported that several members of Congress were sending then EPA Director Carol Browner an angry letter, asking her to address allegations that Rubin had been engaged in threatening and harassing telephone calls and e-mails to anti-sludge activists.

In May 2000, the House Committee on Science held a hearing on BS issues at which hearing Jane Beswick, a dairy farmer from Stanislaus County, Calif. testified. Ms. Beswick had become a vocal critic of the use of BS as fertilizer. In her testimony before Congress she related how Rubin made implicit threats to bring the feds down on her if she didn’t stop speaking out about the risks of BS, and how Rubin began sending her unsolicited BS propaganda, including one hand-written note that said, "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." Ms Beswick’s testimony was: "To me, [Rubin] was saying that if I didn’t stop speaking out about the risks of using sludge, there would be closer scrutiny of animal manure by Federal and State inspectors–which has happened."

I ended the blog entry with the following surprisingly prophetic paragraph, surprising because normally I’m not much of a prophet. In fact I have a hard time predicting what day of the week Easter Sunday will fall on.

If the DEQ insists on having pro-sludge zealots on its BS Panel, then it is obligated to balance the Panel with anti-sludge zealots. Otherwise the work of the Panel and the whole DEQ effort will be tainted by suspicions of industry influence, just like the VDH "efforts" were. Deja vu.

In the end, that’s exactly what we got, a report tainted by suspicions of industry influence.

1. Are citizen-reported health symptoms associated with the land application of biosolids [i.e. BS]?

First, as a fairly obvious starting point, we should take a quick look at what it is the question asks. Or, more to the point the "expert panel" should have started here. Too bad they didn’t. The question asks about an association between reported symptoms and BS. It does not ask about a cause and effect relationship between BS and human illness. Unfortunately, the expert panel was not quick enough to see this fine point and off they went on a goose chase – the goose being causality. Instead of chasing gooses, what they should have done was to see if they could establish a temporal and geographical association with BS and symptoms.

So let’s answer the question for them, since they obviously missed it. Is there an association? Yes, of course there is, and there can be absolutely no doubt of that. You don’t need a PhD to figure that out; you don’t even need a frontal lobe. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of documented cases in Virginia of individuals’ symptoms being temporally and geographically associated with land application of BS. For instance, the County Administrator of Appomattox County once told me that she went out to investigate a citizen’s complaint of sludge and as she got out of her car she became so overwhelmed by the oder she almost blew lunch and had to get back in the car. Nausea is a symptom, and this is but one example out of hundreds of anecdotes that definitely establish an association between BS and human symptoms.

Want hard data – as in peer-reviewed, published studies?

On July 14, 2008 I reported in The Gutter Grunt’s Anti-BS Blog the results of a BS study done by Khuder et al. at University of Toledo and reported in Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health 62:5, 2007. A .pdf version of the report is here: LINK. Khuder’s data leaves next to no doubt that there is an association between land-applied BS and symptoms. Here is their conclusion:

Results revealed that some reported health-related symptoms were statistically significantly elevated among the exposed residents, including excessive secretion of tears, abdominal bloating, jaundice, skin ulcer, dehydration, weight loss, and general weakness. The frequency of reported occurrence of bronchitis, upper respiratory infection, and giardiasis were also statistically significantly elevated. The findings suggest an increased risk for certain respiratory, gastrointestinal, and other diseases among residents living near farm fields on which the use of biosolids [i.e. BS] was permitted.

In addition, Khuder et al. found that the incidence of multiple sclerosis was 14x higher in individuals living within 1 mile of sludged fields.

It was also a significant association when in the late1980’s Bob Waters, a former SF 49ers quarterback came down with another neurological disease, ALS - amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease. Waters died of the disease, as did two of his teammates from the 49ers 1964 season, Matt Hazeltine and Gary Lewis. The prevalence of ALS in the population is far, far less than MS (50 per 100,000 v. 1171 per 100,000), and the odds of three members of a group of about 70 people having ALS are "astronomically small." The only suspicious factor anyone could find was that 49ers practice field had been sludged with a commercial BS product, Milorganite, for about a decade prior to the 49ers using it.

So the question now becomes: Why didn’t the "expert panel" answer the question before them? Well, because the "experts" on the panel decided to answer another question, one that they knew could not be answered. The question the "expert panel" actually addressed was this: Is there a causal link between BS and illness? Nobody asked them to investigate a causal link, and, more to the point, nobody funded them to investigate a causal link. It would take a million dollar budget and a lab of 20 technicians and epidemiologists to answer that question for just one contaminant. So it’s not surprising that what the "expert panel" came up with was:

In the past 18 months, the Panel uncovered no evidence or literature verifying a causal link between biosolids [i.e. BS] and illness, recognizing current gaps in the science and knowledge surrounding this issue. Report, pg 7.

As I say, pigeon poop – exactly, what the pro-BS "experts" on the panel wanted. Synagro hacks then twisted that conclusion into a propaganda campaign. On their Virginia Biosolids [i.e. BS] Council website, the Synagro hacks spun the report as follows:

Biosolids [i.e. BS] Safe Says Expert Panel

The Expert Panel created by the Virginia General Assembly has concluded that the land application of biosolids [i.e. BS] represents little risk to human health or the environment and that biosolids [i.e. BS] should be viewed as a valuable resource. LINK

This is a falsehood. The "expert panel" came to no such conclusion. At most, the panel concluded there is not sufficient evidence to say one way or the other whether or not BS is safe. Synagro’s tactic is a logical fallacy used by all progaganda machines. It’s called "argument from silence." It is a claim that a proposition (here the proposition that BS causes illness) is proven false because there are no data to support it. The claim that the Report concludes that BS is a valuable resource had nothing to do with land application. That claim was with respect to burning BS for energy.

Keep in mind that a Synagro VP in Detroit has just pleaded guilty to bribery of city officials, and another Synagro VP in Baltimore has been placed on paid leave while the FBI investigates her. Remember also that the Virginia Biosolids Council, to which the Report refers again and again, is nothing more that a shill for Synagro, as I reported in detail some time ago, in Spew #1. LINK

Again, the "results" of the investigation of this question was: "insufficient data." How much data do you need to reason that your property is going to lose value when the BS trucks start rolling in next door?

Interestingly, the "expert panel" had the chance to generate some data on the issue.

The Panel determined that it did not have the resources to undertake a valid study of the impact of biosolids [i.e. BS] [i.e. BS] on property values. Two Panel members volunteered to investigate the property value issue to determine if such an association existed. These two members worked with the Virginia Association of Realtors to conduct an on-line survey, which produced results that the Panel considered inconclusive based on sample selection and validity of the questions asked. The Panel could not make any determination as to whether or not biosolids [i.e. BS] odors had any impact on property values. Report, pg 13.

You just gotta’ wonder who buried these data. We would certainly like to see the results of that survey.

As you will have guessed by now, the answer to this question was "insufficient data." But in this case the "expert panel" itself, not the just Synagro hacks, is being specious, if not out right dishonest. Here’s what the "experts" concluded:

As long as biosolids [i.e. BS] are applied in conformance with all state and federal law and regulations, (e.g., within contaminant limits, loading rate constraints, application site criteria, site access restrictions), there is no scientific evidence of any toxic effect to soil organisms, plants grown in treated soils, or to humans via bio-accumulation pathways from inorganic trace elements (including heavy metals) found at the current concentrations in biosolids [i.e. BS]. Report, pg 15.

Do you see the subterfuges? There are 3. First, the conclusion is predicated on a fact that has never been proven: that the sludgers follow the law. The only way to prove this predicate is to test every single of load of BS that is spread to see which contaminates it contains at levels above legal limits. If even one load has even one contaminant in excess of the legal limit, then the conclusion is invalid. Do any loads of BS spread in Va. have one or more contaminants in excess of legal limits? I’d bet both my law license and my driver’s license on it.

The second subterfuge is the ole’ argument from silence. The conclusion is not that BS is safe – it is that there is no evidence of toxic effects. Of course, there is no evidence of a lack of toxic effect either. That’s the point the whole ABM (Anti-Biosolids Movement) is making.

The third subterfuge is that the conclusion is restricted to inorganic trace elements, which are just one facet of the whole complex problem, whereas the question had no such limitation.

The fourth subterfuge (I know. I said 3, but this one is for extra credit.) is that the qualifier "inorganic trace elements" is itself qualified by "found at the current concentrations in biosolids." Hello, "expert panel," this is the basic problem: nobody knows what the "current concentrations" are unless every load of BS is tested. Don’t you get it???

This question is not a statutory question, it was concocted by the "expert panel". Statutory question #3 was actually a 2-part question. The second part was: Can BS affect water quality? "Can," as in "is it possible?" The subterfuge here is that "can" is not equivalent to "to what degree." Again the "expert panel" has chosen to modify the statutory question to make it one that is not possible to answer without a lot – and I mean a lot – of funding. Then the "expert panel" can beg off giving any answer at all other than their standard "no evidence" answer.

But here again they are entirely disingenuous. Here is a part of their answer:

Regarding contaminant limits, the levels of regulated inorganic trace elements (including heavy metals) found at the current concentrations in biosolids [i.e., BS] are often an order of magnitude lower than the risk-based limits in the regulations. This was confirmed in the data submitted to the Panel by 15 wastewater treatment plants. Report, pg. 16.

Again, the ruse is on. The "expert panel" restricts the response to "regulated inorganic trace elements," ignoring that BS has a lot more problems than inorganics and ignoring the whole universe of non-regulated inorganics. Second, the response asserts that inorganics "are often" an order of magnitude (i.e. 10x) lower than the regulation limits. "Are often" ????? Sure, we’d have to agree with that. The inorganic contaminants are undoubtedly often below the set limits. But they are often 10x higher than the limits, too, and it is in the being 10x higher that people get hurt.

Most of the response to this question focuses on N and P. I’ll leave it to nutrients expert Dr. Lynton S. Land to evaluate that discussion other to say that the "expert panel" was not able to reach any consensus with respect to N and P.  The "expert panel" was, in fact, not able to reach a consensus on much of anything.

As for the other thousands of contaminants in BS:

However, there is very little research to date on other constituents, their transport mechanisms, and how they might affect water quality. While certain contaminants have been found in land applied biosolids, [i.e., BS] mere presence will not in itself cause water quality impacts without a means to reach ground and surface waters. Report, pg. 19.

Now, that is very helpful. One does not need an "expert panel," to figure out that contaminants that are in BS have to be able to get to the water before they can contaminate it.

The first point to ponder with this question is that it is a clear admission by the General Assembly that BS contaminants accumulate in wildlife.  I'm not sure I have seen any government admit that before.

As for the answer . . . well, we are used to the pattern of deception and evasion, and the response to this question is no different. The response is that there is good news and there is bad news. The good news is that there are "studies indicating a positive effect on wildlife populations as a result of the use of biosolids [i.e. BS] to restore wildlife habitat."

But, hold on – the question was not about wildlife habitat. It was about the accumulation of toxins in wildlife. So the good news is totally irrelevant to the question, meaning that there is only bad news, which is: "other studies have suggested potential long-term negative health, reproductive, behavioral and population viability impacts from the exposure to compounds and contaminants that are ubiquitous in multiple environmental media including biosolids." Report, pg. 20.

See what they’ve done? They try to make it sound like, oh, yeah, no problem with BS, specifically. The contaminants are ubiquitous. Talk about BS bs. How "ubiquitous" are cadmium, mercury, lead, and radioactive isotopes? I would put down good money on the bet that what the studies they are referring to showed was long-term negative effects of BS on wildlife. Period. But the pro-sludge "experts" demanded the spin.

With respect to this question, the "expert panel" noted that is sent out questionnaires to 43 wastewater treatment plants, and 15 responded by sending data. (5 responded by saying they do not land apply BS.) And these data, according to the "expert panel", demonstrate that "an extensive history of the compliance regarding levels of regulated parameters is available." Report, pg. 22.

But hang on a sec.’ What does it mean when your response rate is less than 50%? It means that the majority of WTPs are probably so dirty they don’t want to share their data with anyone, much less a state agency that can shut them down. And when you look at the appendix of the Report you see that only 9 WTPs provided any data from Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure, which tests for hazardous materials such as pesticides, herbicides, PCBs, etc. That’s a 21% response rate (based on the whole 43 surveyed because TCLP data are not collected only by those spreading BS on land).

No, the disappointment is that more members of the "expert panel" didn’t put a lot of distance between themselves and this deceitful, disingenuous, duplicitous, . . .(I’m trying to think up more "d" words without cussing) . . . dastardly pile of BS bs that this "report" represents.

But, closing on a high note, there is one beam of silver light emanating from this wasted exercise. On December 12, 2008 two panel members, Henry Staudinger and Alan Rubin, made a public record of their objections to the Report. Here is a LINK to the objections. Please read it. It concisely sets forth several very serious short-comings of the report that I have missed in this Spew. By way of background, Henry Staudinger is an anti-BS warrior and lawyer whose health has been adversely affected by BS. Alan Rubin is the same Alan Rubin I discuss above – the Sheik of Sludge. That these two gentlemen would join forces to clear the air on the shortcomings of the Report is to me a very, very significant indication that honesty will prevail and an enlightened public policy on land application of toxic BS will emerge eventually. Thank you Mr. Staudinger. Thank you Dr. Rubin.