New U.S. Sludge Rules May Affect Disposal in L.A. Area

The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed tougher standards for the disposal of sewage sludge, regulations that could cause problems in Los Angeles, local officials said.

The proposal would require that sludge, a byproduct of waste water treatment, contain fewer pollutants before it is incinerated or turned into fertilizer--methods of disposal commonly used in Southern California.

“This proposal relates to ecological as well as human life protection,” an EPA official said Tuesday. “We did not find that sludge is a huge environmental problem, but we need to assure that the quality of sludge is maintained.”

The proposal was developed in response to the Clean Water Act passed last year. In that legislation, Congress directed the EPA to issue technical sludge standards to protect the environment and public health.

The regulations must undergo a series of public hearings and review and, if given final EPA approval, will become effective in October, 1991, said Martha Prothro, a director of the EPA.

Cities and counties that choose to dispose of their sludge in municipal landfills would not be covered by the regulations.

However, county sanitation officials in Los Angeles said Tuesday that the new requirements would pose added disposal problems by forcing the county to rely more on landfill dumping, an option that is increasingly scarce, the officials said.

Much of the county’s sludge is disposed of in landfills now, as well as by either burning it or converting it to fertilizer that is sold to public nurseries.

The regulations could also raise obstacles for the city of Los Angeles, which has spent more than $300 million on a sludge incinerator that will co-generate electricity. Some of the city’s sludge is also used as fertilizer on farms in California and Arizona.

City officials want to eliminate the disposal of sludge in scarce landfills.

Officials at the EPA said that forcing localities to increase disposal of sludge in landfills, just to avoid the new rules, is not the intent.

“Our purpose is not to force changes in disposal,” Prothro said. “Our purpose is that the sludge remain clean.” However, she added that if the new regulations should have the effect of encouraging landfill use, “we will have to take another hard look at the rules.”

Presently, the regulations apply the strict standards to four methods of sludge disposal: fertilizers, marketing and distribution, sludge-only landfills and incineration.

The other primary method for sludge disposal, municipal landfills where a variety of wastes of are dumped, is regulated jointly under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Clean Water Act and would not be affected.

About a third of the nation’s 15,300 publicly owned sewage plants would be affected by the new regulations, EPA officials said. These plants, which use the designated disposal methods, produce about 50% of the country’s sludge.