By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer
A request by the City of Burlington to renew its expired biosolid applications permit has environmentalists and officials from Orange and Chatham counties asking for better studies and tighter oversight of the program.
Orange County has more than 3,000 acres of farmland that are regularly sprayed with biosolids — a watery sludge of human and other waste from municipal treatment plants. Though the practice is common in most counties, Orange County has an unusually large amount of acreage being used for biosolid application. Biosolids from Burlington, Cary, Durham, Hillsborough, Mebane and the Orange Water and Sewer Authority are applied to fields in the county. Burlington sprayed roughly 3.2 million gallons in the county in 2006. Several of the biosolid application sites are within critical watershed areas of the county.
The county, however, does not have regulatory control over the application. Oversight of the program is up to the state — specifically, the North Carolina Department of Heath and Natural Resource’s Division of Water Quality.
Concerned about new research questioning the safety of long-term application and lack of oversight, a coalition of rural residents and environmental groups led by the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League pressured state regulators to hold a hearing on Burlington’s permit.
The hearing, held last week in Graham, drew close to 100 people, including state Sen. Ellie Kinniard, who has called for more studies and better regulation of the programs.
Nancy Holt, who lives on Bradshaw Quarry Road in northwestern Orange County, said she is worried that oversight of the program is non-existent.
In 2006, Holt said Burlington’s contractor sprayed nearby fields for 53 days straight, from July 10 to September 9. When she went to look up the records the city is required to keep, it listed only 11 days of spraying.
“Where did the rest of that stuff come from?†she asked.
Holt said she’d like to see the state give counties greater regulatory authority over the spraying. The state’s set-back limit of 400 feet from residences seems far too close, she said, especially since the biosolids are not incorporated into the soil, and once dry can be kicked up by the wind.
While she acknowledges that many farmers rely on the spraying to keep fertilizer costs down, Holt said there are too many questions remaining about the health risks. Though human health studies were promised when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency okayed spraying in 1993, they’ve yet to be conducted.
“We just don’t know what’s in this stuff,†Holt said.
In a recent letter to the Orange County Board of Commissioners, Susan Dayton, a Blue Ridge organizer, noted a growing concern that the sludge being applied to fields contains toxic compounds, including personal-care products, pharmaceuticals, fire retardants, PCBs, pathogens and dioxins.
With comprehensive research on the health effects of the compounds yet to be completed and so much acreage in use in Orange County, the commissioners sent a letter to the Division of Water Quality requesting that another public hearing on the Burlington permit be scheduled in Orange County.
The county also noted that its zoning ordinance prohibits the spraying of biosolids in critical watershed areas, although it acknowledges that the state can override that regulation.
This is a great article. Very informative. Is there any chance you could post the map that was included with the original publication? I believe the map showed the application sites within critical watershed areas in the county.