News Coverage
DU Spread Toxin-Rich Sludge in Lawrence
Published March 1, 2009
Decatur Utilities dumped most of the sludge from its wastewater treatment plant, containing high levels of a toxin, on farms in Lawrence County.
In its response to a public records request, DU provided statements from Synagro South LLC showing it applied recent sludge shipments to two farms in Morgan County and about two dozen farms in Lawrence County, most between Moulton and the Morgan-Lawrence county line.
"Sludge" is the biosolid residue left after the treatment plant processes raw waste from households and industries.
The toxins that have state and federal environmental agencies concerned are perfluorinated compounds, especially PFOA and PFOS.
PFC risks
At high levels, perfluorinated compounds are suspected carcinogens. Studies released in recent weeks indicate the compounds may cause infertility and retard brain growth in infants.
"(PFCs) are present in the environment and are found in dust and human milk, which implies that newborns and toddlers can be directly exposed to these agents during brain development," according to a study published in February in the journal Toxicological Sciences.
Other studies show the chemical, most often used to produce Teflon and related products, suppresses testosterone and estrogen.
Until discovering high levels of PFCs in fields treated with DU sludge, the Environmental Protection Agency had no regulations on the chemical.
After receiving test results from the fields in October, the agency issued a provisional health advisory limiting PFCs in drinking water to 0.2 or 0.4 parts per billion, depending on the type of compound.
A senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group, Olga Naidenko, Ph.D., said the advisory is too liberal. The problem, she said, is that PFCs accumulate in the body for several years. A person or animal that drinks water every day from a contaminated source would develop levels of the chemical hundreds of times higher than the PFC level in the drinking water.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in conjunction with the EPA, plans to test the meat of cattle that graze on DU sludge-treated fields, EPA officials said.
The Alabama Department of Environmental Management first tested private wells near the fields in January, also the first time the agency notified well owners. It has not released test results.
EPA collected the samples from fields 19 months ago when a Decatur company, which it has not identified, reported discharging effluent with abnormally high PFC levels into the DU sewer system.
October is not the first time tests have shown high PFC levels in DU sludge. Tests by 3M
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Co., which formally used PFCs to manufacture Scotchgard and other products, showed high levels in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
November meeting
ADEM Director Troy Glenn met with local elected officials in November about the PFC contamination.
ADEM Spokesman Scott Hughes said ADEM did not record who attended the meeting, but in an e-mail he said the agency invited "various local mayors (Decatur/Moulton), the county commissions (Lawrence/Morgan), and local legislators (representatives/senators)."
The officials did not publicize concerns over the PFCs or notify well owners at the time. Decatur Utilities has monthly board meetings, covered by a Daily reporter, but never mentioned the PFC issue.
In a Jan. 15 e-mail to board members, DU General Manager Ray Hardin wrote, "It is just a matter of time now before the local news outlets report on it."
Decatur Councilmen Ronny Russell and Gary Hammon said they were not aware of a November meeting with Glenn.
Sludge piling up
Hardin said DU's contractor, Synagro, stopped spreading sludge on farms Nov. 12.
Discontinuing the practice has caused problems for the utility. Initially, it stored the sludge at its treatment plant next to Ingalls Harbor.
On Jan. 12, Plants and Engineering Manager Tom Cleveland sent an e-mail to the state environmental management agency.
"Need your help this morning," the e-mail said. "We have now reached a critical point in holding our sludge."
DU then began trucking the sludge to the Morgan County landfill and Morris Farms landfill in Hillsboro, at a higher cost.
"There is really nothing else we can do unless we go back to land application, which we would prefer since land filling is really eating up our budget," Cleveland said in a Jan. 30 e-mail to an ADEM official.
In 2006, 3M tested leachate from the Morgan County landfill. It had PFC levels of 48.7 parts per billion.
Tracking the source
After learning of the high PFC levels on sludge-treated fields, DU began trying to track the source. It sent information requests to several dozen area industries on the DU wastewater system asking if they used PFCs.
Of the responses included in documents turned over pursuant to the public records request, four companies said they used, or recently have used, PFCs:
--Daikin America. Daikin said in a letter to DU that it manufactures and uses PFCs and has several waste streams that contain PFCs. It stopped discharging process wastewater to DU in November, it said.
--3M Co. said it stopped using PFCs in 2004. For at least 10 years, according to Daikin, 3M land-applied its waste.
--Toray Fluorofibers (America) Inc. Toray uses chemicals with PFCs, including its main raw material. The company said it is beginning trials this year of a substitute raw material without PFCs.
--Delphi. Delphi said it uses pipe thread sealants and a grinding wheel that have PFCs, but they are "unlikely to enter into our wastewater treatment system."
While 3M no longer uses PFCs, on Jan. 31 it had a fire in the film plant. Company firefighters extinguished the blaze with a foam that contains PFCs, about 10 gallons of which entered the DU sewer system.
The EPA in January sent more detailed requests for information to 14 companies that use the DU sewer system.
Synagro applied most of the biosolids on land that lies in a triangle east of Moulton, bordered on the north by Alabama 24, on the south by Alabama 157 and on the east by the Lawrence-Morgan county line.
Other application points are near Courtland and Hillsboro.
The Tennessee River intake for DU drinking water is upstream of its sewer discharge, and EPA tests show no detectible PFCs in Decatur's or Moulton's public drinking water.
When 3M tested DU's effluent -- which discharges into the Tennessee River -- in 1999, it had PFC levels 100 times the since-adopted health advisory for drinking water.
The West Morgan-East Lawrence public water system, with an intake downstream of the DU discharge point, tested positive for 0.02 parts per billion, below the provisional health advisory. Farther downstream, the Florence, Muscle Shoals and Sheffield public water supply tested at 0.04 parts per billion in 2006.
West Morgan-East Lawrence tested at 0.16 parts per billion when 3M tested it in 2006.
