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November 28, 2005: BC PROPOSES TOXIC WASTE TO FERTILIZE CROPS

B.C.

They are at it again! The BC government is proposing, after only 30 days internet based consultation, to allow the almost uncontrolled landspreading of pulp mill sludge, lime dregs, and fly ash (that’s the stuff out of the pollution control devices at the top of the stack – they catch the pollution that now BC Environment wants to spread on farmland.)

The Code of Practice requires testing for only 11 metals – worse than the last time out in 2000, when at least the sludge was required to be tested for all the compounds listed in the Contaminated Sites Act! Even then we protested that this was inadequate because of the mix of compounds in pulp mill sludge: No one knows all of the contaminants in pulp mill sludge. We do know that it contains a variety of heavy metals, and chlorinated and non-chlorinated benzenes and phenolics (PAH) and that the amount appears to vary from sample to sample. Nor does anyone know what the actual environmental impacts of landspreading sludge are, because for almost 25 years, industry across North America has been denying environmentalists’ efforts to get some honest testing done.

The new Code of Practice has no recourse for neighbours of the sludge site, does not require records to be publicly available, and throws the burden on to the medical health officers to object if the application is to agricultural land or within a drinking watershed.  Even then, all the medical health officer could do is request that the Regional Environment Director add additional management standards.

Looking at the few criteria the regulation does establish, the presentation may be called at best, disingenuous. The BC Statement Of Intentions For The Code Of Practice says: “Most of these numbers are consistent with the standards for metals in fertilizers and supplements established by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and adopted by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) Guidelines for Compost Quality.”

However closer examination reveals that NONE of the metals levels meet the CCME standard for unrestricted or agricultural use, and in the case of mercury the BC reg even exceeds by three times the CCME maximum acceptable level for restricted use! 

The regulation proposes that sludge should be handled in compliance with the Organic Matter Recycling Regulation, primarily intended for sewage sludge not industrial waste, but a ministry audit of 10 Vancouver island sewage sludge operations in 2003-04 found that “Overall, none of the sites met all significant requirements of the OMRR.”Organic Matter Recycling Regulation Audit Report 2003-2004, 

http://wlapwww.gov.bc.ca/vir/pp/mun/omrr_audi...

When the Code of Practice is not working for sewage sludge, why expand the same failures to industrial waste like pulp mill sludge?

This regulation gives industry cheap disposal of its (often toxic) industrial waste by spreading it on farm and forest.

The main problems with this regulation are:

Lack of knowledge of what really is in the industrial waste which is proposed for spreading on farmland.

Lack of testing

Lack of public notification and lack of public recourse

What few safeguards and standards there are insufficient, unenforceable and after-the-fact.

For more information about sludge and what we know about it, as well as the historical background to this issue in BC, see

http://www.rfu.org/cacw/pollutionSludge1.ht

For the Government notice see:

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epdiv/ema_codes_of_p...

Please email:

barry.penner.mla@leg.bc.ca  

and your local MLA. Contact information is available at:  http://www.legis.gov.bc.ca/mla/3-1-7.htm

You can’t easily post your response on the government “consultation” page but you can email it to cindybertram@shaw.ca

Fax: (250) 562-0628
Address: 4,

BC  Minister of Environment Barry Penner
E-mail: barry.penner.mla@leg.bc.ca
Phone: 250 387-1187
Fax:

Topic(s): Energy News

Posted By Delores Broten, RFU

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