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Indybay Feature

SF poised to give away toxic compost to residents

by Betty
San Francisco’s free “compost” is not traditional compost at all, but instead combines sewage sludge (a toxic product of waste water treatment) with green waste, yard waste and wood chips.
sludge.jpg
The City of San Francisco’s Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) hosts biannual “Compost Giveaway Events” every spring and fall in which the City offers the residents free “compost.” Compost, the bedrock of organic agriculture, traditionally offers a way for a farmer or gardener to turn food scraps and manure into a nutrient rich soil amendment. San Francisco’s free “compost” is not traditional compost at all, but instead combines sewage sludge (a toxic product of waste water treatment) with green waste, yard waste and wood chips.

While seemingly innocuous or even environmentally beneficial, these compost giveaway events are distributing toxic compost to community gardens, school gardens and local residents because the “compost” distributed by the SFPUC is made with sewage sludge. Sewage sludge is shown by EPA and others to contain heavy metals, pathogens, pharmaceuticals, PCB’s, flame retardants and endocrine disruptors. Numerous additional organic pollutants are present in US sludge samples, such as polybrominated diphenal ethers (PBDEs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, DDT degradation products, chlordadanes, synthetic musk products, triclosan, and tributytin.

The SFPUC also claims that biosolids are “non-hazardous and nontoxic.” Yet, upon request, the only test result provided by the SFPUC is a metals analysis of Synargo - Central Valley Compost. No toxic analysis or other data about the hazardous contents of the sludge are provided!

Residents may be led to believe that the City’s sludge compost is “organic.” The USDA’s National Organic Program’s (NOP) regulations, however, strictly forbid the use of sewage sludge as a fertilizer or soil amendment, no matter if it is composted or otherwise “treated.” This “compost” is by no means organic.

The next SFPUC compost giveaway is September 26, 2009. The Center for Food Safety and the Resource Institute for Low Entropy Systems filed a petition with Gavin Newsom, San Francisco’s Mayor and Ed Harrington, General Manager of SFPUC yesterday asking them to immediately and permanently suspend the sewage sludge compost giveaways.
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by Tony Winnicker, SFPUC
The biosolids compost that the SFPUC gives out at our events is basically what you would find in a gardening store. Our goal with the program is to increase awareness about biosolids and expand our in-city reuse opportunities. The problem with the claims by the Center for Food Safety is that they don't really address the fact that we have empirical lab data on the metals and other compounds found in San Francisco's biosolids. Their broad statements really have no foundation in San Francisco, where as with many of our other sustainable programs, we go above and beyond what is required by federal and state laws in testing. Here is more information:

Background: What are Biosolids? What is biosolids compost?

- Biosolids are the treated nutrient-rich solid waste removed from sewage at every wastewater treatment plant. In San Francisco, biosolids treated in an anaerobic environment (in an environment devoid of oxygen) and heated for about 20 days at 95 degrees Fahrenheit in a series of tanks at our treatment plants.

- Biosolids Compost undergoes further aerobic treatment for 3-4 weeks (oxygen-based environment) and kept at temperatures exceeding 131 degrees Fahrenheit at a composting facility in Merced. At the facility the biosolids is mixed in with organic materials like wood chips or paper fiber. This is the process that allows us to designate the biosolids as compost.

- The sustained and serial anaerobic and aerobic treatment substantially reduces many compounds of concern.

Metals Levels / Other compounds of concerns (ie: endocrine disrupters, triclosan, etc)

- Metals - We have very low concentration of metals in our biosolids. Our levels are not only far below the current EPA standards, but below the more stringent European Union standards as well! In fact, if you line up our biosolids compost with the same compost you would purchase at your typical gardening store, the metals concentrations would be about the same, in other words, VERY LOW.

Other compounds of concerns

- Although we aren't required to, the SFPUC has conducted tests on these compounds because we want to ahead of the curve. We have lab reports showing extremely low levels for all of these compounds in our biosolids. One of the few countries in the world that even has limits on endocrine disrupters is Denmark. Our levels of endocrine disrupters fall below what is required to meet even their reuse standards.

- The Center for Food Safety is correct that the EPA doesn't require testing, but as I pointed out, it doesn't really apply to San Francisco because we have tested.

Why are the metals/other compounds low?

- There are a couple of reasons why:

1) The SFPUC provides drinking water from an enclosed, protected tap water supply. There is contamination of our water from wastewater dischargers into our water source. We get our great water pretty much from snowmelt off the Sierra Nevada to our taps.

2) San Franciscans are very educated and environmentally conscious. Part of that is due to the great work of SF Environment and the SFPUC. People know they shouldn't be dumping their motor oil down the drain, or dumping dangerous chemicals down the toilet. After all, where does all that end up - straight to our wastewater treatment plants.

This is also part of the reason the SFPUC puts on the Big Blue Bucket event. We educate people and provide resources for people to do the right thing. At our first event last year, we collected more than 2 tons of old/expired medications for proper disposal. A few months ago SFE started a pilot drug mail-back that has been met with huge success.

The SFPUC also has an aggressive, and award winning water pollution prevention program. In the past 8 years, we've eliminated mercury runoff from dentist's offices and are constantly sampling our major dischargers to make sure they are in compliance.

3) San Francisco is primarily a residential city. There are no major industries in the City that would serve as a large contributor of metals and compounds into the wastewater system.
by SLUDGE
My experience with biosolids in mine land reclamation in Nevada is that they are Prohibited from use for Food Crops (and most human contact situations). The hazardous materials, pharmaceuticals and metals everyone pours down their sinks and down business drains into the Waste Treatment Stream contaminates the biosolids to the point that they are clearly unsafe. Unless an approved, regularly administered and comprehensive testing program is in place, you never know what toxics you are getting. Is SF spending that kind of money testing their BioSolids?

While exploring the possible use of biosolids to enhance soil recovery in the Nevada sites, the BLM and USFS reclamation specialists could only cite one case where the biosolids were approved and that was from a small Waste Treatment facility in a rural eastern community with a clear history of No Commercial/Industrial contribution to the Bio-Solid waste stream.

In short, any bureaucrat who pushes bio-solid compost Without and exhaustive chemical testing and analysis program, is likely to be poisoning you.
by composter
I think it's going to be pretty hard to convince anyone that this free compost is a good thing. (Once the word gets around.)
Many people that have gardens make their own compost so they can control what goes in it. I was already wondering how many people make use of the "free compost" from a citywide source (all the food scraps that sunset takes away each week) and I don't think I would even risk putting that on my garden, that's before knowing that it includes mostly SEWAGE SLUDGE!

I don't think anyone in their right mind would use this "free compost" on a food garden.
Maybe we could consider it's use on a yard, but one must consider the long term effects that, it's going to get washed into the drainage system and eventually end up in drinking water. Also if you have kids or animals you would think twice about using this in your yard.

So my questions would be, what processes is this sludge going through to breakdown and remove the toxins (and there be many) from the sewage before we cart it away. And how thorough and frequent is that testing?



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