Pennsylvania Ping!
Please ping me with articles of interest.
FReepmail me to be added to the list.
Posted on 10/26/2021 12:48:11 PM PDT by lightman
Brace yourself for inflation where you least expect itin Pennsylvania’s bathrooms.
That was the conclusion state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe came to Monday while chairing a hearing of the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, which heard testimony about the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) plan to revise requirements for its Biosolids Beneficial Use General Permit. This is a permit for anyone who deals in the land application of biosolids— livestock manure on farms, and the stuff you flush in the bathroom that ends up in a septic tank or a wastewater treatment facility. Biosolids can be used in mine reclamation, landscaping to promote plant growth and as fertilizer on farmland.
DEP was invited to the hearing, but declined to attend, Metcalfe, a Republican, said. The agency did send a letter, signed by DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell, answering some of Metcalfe’s questions.
The proposed changes were revealed when the DEP provided a summary of them in March in a presentation to its Agricultural Advisory Board. But Metcalfe says the changes have not gone through the proper procedure.
“This is going to impact everyone who flushes,” Metcalfe said. “There is cost that is going into effect by the changes to this permit. It will add to inflation when there is no sound science … it should only be advanced by the General Assembly. It is illegal, unconstitutional, and should be going through the legislative and regulatory process, not through some back room in the DEP.”
How will the changes affect consumers? If allowed to become policy, the changes will increase the cost of managing biosolids and the cost will be passed on to consumers, through increased municipal wastewater fees, or higher septic tank cleaning costs, according to those who testified at the hearing.
A Bit of Science
DEP’s new permitting rules would prohibit water treatment facilities from mixing hauled-in waste with sewage sludge. Currently, some wastewater treatment facilities accept trucked in food waste from restaurants and food manufacturers, and biosolids trucked away from septic tanks. While municipal sewage flows into the head of the plant, these trucked-in items go directly into an anaerobic food digester near the end of the plant’s process.
William Toffey, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Biosolids Association, said the digester’s contents are mixed with the plant’s sewage in a tank with tiny organisms that break things down while making natural gas. The process can produce enough gas to power the water treatment plant. Some facilities have invested in getting into this technology so they can sell the excess gas or use it as power.
But DEP now wants all waste to be mixed in at the head of the plant instead of at the digester.
Toffey said this will make wastewater treatment plants less efficient.
“This restriction would prevent some biosolids from being recycled,” Toffey said. “It will not produce methane if it is mixed with wastewater.”
Michael Kyle, executive director of the Lancaster Area Sewer Authority in Lancaster, Pennsylvania said the move would result in lost revenue for the Sewer Authority which currently accepts the waste of 30 haulers. Over a year, the Authority takes in about 18 million gallons of trucked-in waste. This generates $500,000 which is used to maintain the plant. It helps keep rates down for customers, Kyle testified.
The head of the plant is not designed to treat certain hauled wastes and putting them through the entire process as the DEP will require could harm the process, Kyle testified.
“We would have to eliminate a lot of the hauled waste, and the waste generators who come to us would have no place to go,” Kyle said. “Instead, these wastes would be diverted to landfills where they would create fugitive greenhouse gasses, or worse, they would be illegally dumped.”
“We would like for the changes to go through the regulatory process and have a cost benefit analysis,” Kyle said. “We know there will be cost, but we don’t know the benefits.”
In its letter to Metcalfe, the DEP said it understands that this type of operation benefits the wastewater treatment facility by optimizing energy generation.
“We are working to develop another permitting scenario or a modification to the existing permitting scenario to allow those who operate in this manner to continue,” the letter said.
Testing Requirement
While the permit changes would cause lost revenue, they will also impose higher operating costs—Kyle estimates over $10,000 a year—as the DEP plans to require regular testing for polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). This is a class of synthetic chemicals used to make anything that is non-stick or water repellent. From Teflon cookware and shiny paper to the spray for leather shoes that keeps water out, there are thousands of applications for PFAS and a concern that the chemicals, in use since the 1940s, could cause cancer or other health problems.
Because it is heat resistant, you could burn those water-resistant leather shoes to ashes and still find PFAS in the ashes, Toffey said. He added that it is too soon to implement this regulation because there are not enough testing facilities, and the testing is not yet standardized.
“We are about two years out from having protocols for analysis of PFAS compounds in biosolids,” Toffey testified. “Only in the last couple of weeks did EPA, in collaboration with the Department of Defense, issue proposed protocols for PFAS analysis in wastewater and biosolids. It still has to go through a substantial amount of technical review.” Until that review is complete, it cannot be put into National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits.
“There is only one lab in the entire country that is preforming PFAS analysis according to that current protocol,” Toffey said. “Almost every other laboratory is using some other approach and they are not comparable.” Less Available Land
Once a wastewater treatment facility is done treating sewage, the left-over solids are spread onto the ground. Often it is given away to farmers who use it as free fertilizer. This is the “beneficial use” mentioned in the permit’s name. Without free organic fertilizer, farmers would buy fertilizer, often made in other countries, and introduce more nitrates and phosphorus into the local environment.
The DEP is proposing using the Pennsylvania Phosphorus Index, a field evaluation tool, to identify areas of soil with a high risk of phosphorus running off with soil during rain storms, and flowing into streams.
As part of a multistate agreement, Pennsylvania must reduce the amount of nitrates and phosphorus flowing into the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, which covers a large portion of Pennsylvania.
DEP currently only considers the nitrogen content of biosolids to determine how much can be applied to the land. In its letter to Metcalfe, DEP agrees that including phosphorus in the determination will limit the amount of land available for biosolids application.
“There is the potential for the proposed permit changes to limit the amount of biosolids that can be applied at existing land application sites,” the letter said. “In these cases, to apply the same volume of biosolids at the same rate, the applicant would be required to use other land application sites or new land application sites would need to be acquired. These situations may result in additional cost for research and evaluation of the additional site(s). DEP also understands that finding new land application sites can be difficult. Biosolids land application at a new site can be a contentious issue with neighboring land owners.”
With wastewater treatment facilities unable to process trucked-in waste, and less land to spread the waste, trucks will have to drive long distances, possibly to neighboring states, to find a place to discard the waste.
“If they get this into final draft and you have a septic system, your septic haulers are going to be going hundreds of miles,” Ned Lang, president of the Pennsylvania Septage Management Association said. That means increased cost for haulers passed on to consumers. In Pennsylvania, 43 percent of homes use a septic tank.
“The potential financial impact of the proposed changes would be far reaching, touching the lives of every taxpayer in the commonwealth,” Lang testified. “It is probable that less biosolids will be recycled and more will be disposed in landfills, if they’re available. If biosolids cannot be land applied and must be disposed in a landfill, the cost is likely to double or triple.”
The DEP, in its letter, said it expects its “stakeholder engagement processes” to extend through January 2022, with a publication of draft permits for public comment early in 2022.
Pennsylvania Ping!
Please ping me with articles of interest.
FReepmail me to be added to the list.
RELATED:
Manure makes drinking water? An unlikely solution to a global crisis
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4005601/posts
Can I claim a Turd Tax Credit on my taxes?
Are they going to ban bidets?
Pretty soon we won’t have to worry about toilets or houses or cars because we’re on track to become a third world nation quickly!
There was a Jeopardy question I saw years ago.
“On average, this is the number of times NYC tap water has been through the human body.”
No one guessed it so Alex had to answer.
“What is eight?”
Invest in Mr. Fusion home reactors now. Just nuke the crap out of crap.
Thus creating wonderful new research sources for archeologists 5,000 years from now. "Why did that civilization poop in their coal mines?"
Sewage treatment seems like a legitimate function of local government. Refusing to treat the sewage you have traditionally treated seems like an abuse of power to me.
You want to change the process? Change it. But you have to find a reasonable alternative so that the citizens you serve aren’t impacted.
Politicians and regulators can’t seem to get it through their heads that they work for the citizens, and not the other way around.
Regulatory inspectors to be known as the Poo Po Po.
I have a bit of professional experience with bio-solids.
Putting food waste or food processing waste directly into the plant does have serious impacts to the treatment process, that if not managed properly can “kill the plant” (destroys the bugs that break down the waste) or make it hard to properly treat the waste because of the swings in the strength of the waste being taken in to the plant. However most plants require an industrial pretreatment before being allowed to discharge in to the sewer system.
It sounds like these folks are talking about accepting “slug loads” which is highly concentrated waste.
As for the actual bio-solids, they are not “given away”. The plant operating agency contracts with a specialty firm and pays them to haul it away, and the that firm registers the locations where they will be discharged. Class A bio-solids can be used directly on human food crops or yards, playgrounds, etc. as all of the pathogens are killed during the treatment process. Class B bio-solids can only be placed on animal feed crops and is not supposed to come in contact with locations where people may gather such as yards or parks.
Just a little more background for my fellow Freepers
Septic systems mean that large amounts of waste never get to the plant in the first place. They are only required to treat a tiny fraction of the whole. Tanks that are sized correctly go years without filling up. If those homes were brought on line, the plants would have to be expanded. So waste from the septic pump trucks are a necessary part of the whole picture.
Yeah, yeah, sounds gross. But, c’mon. If you boil liquid sewage and collect the vapor (i.e., like anyone who has run a still knows) all you get is pure H2O. As pure as when it first fell from the sky billions of years ago.
Everything is recycled, eventually.
Chill out. Have a drink — the water or product of favorite still.
Is that why Brandon is bringing in thousands of “no-flush” individuals who don’t know what a toilet is for?
“Will Affect ‘Everyone Who Flushes’” UNLESS they all FLUSH these politicians.
The way things are going in this country, we’ll all be using outhouses & chopping wood to use for heat .... unfortunately, there are no more Sears Roebuck catalogs to use for toilet paper.
The NYC water supply originates from three reservoirs in the Catskills. You think the people up there stand on the banks pissing all day?
Similar to you I think, I also have quite a bit of experience on technical and business aspects involved with this. This is from working on the industrial wastewater treatment side of things that had me working on obtaining permits, designing new and upgrading existing industrial infrastructure for both pretreatment and NPDES direct discharge situations.
The sort of change PA is apparently ramming through seems to be more political agenda driven than science + engineering + economics driven. Unless there are federal EPA standards promulgated for these specific compounds or characteristics, the new state regs are probably going to have a tough, costly and long road trip through the courts.
I say we visit their residence and leave them a present every time we have to go
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.