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By BRIANNA LUSK, Staff Writer Sunday, February 11, 2007 12:55 AM PST Ten years ago in a remote area near Toronto, Canada, Maureen Reilly purchased a 100-year-old farmhouse with a dream of turning it into a quaint bed and breakfast.
With more than 140 acres of rolling pastures surrounding her property, it seemed the idyllic setting she was looking for, that is, until she discovered the fields would regularly be covered with 5,000 tons of paper mill sludge.
That’s when Reilly soon immersed herself in the battle against the land application of sludge and won. An environmental activist ever since, Reilly’s research and expertise has earned her to nickname the “sludge queen.”
Now, Reilly is speaking out in favor of the latest technology considered to be the alternative to land application, sludge-to-energy engineering like that proposed north of Niland.
“The technology proposed is the highest end,” Reilly said of the Liberty Energy plant making its way through the permitting process. “It’s not so much waste disposal as it is renewable energy.”
A NEED FOR ALTERNATIVES
As a speaker about the environmental impacts of sludge across North America and consultant to industries for years, Reilly said she became aware of the proposed Liberty Energy plant during a trip to the Imperial Valley.
She has not been paid money by Liberty and has no affiliation with Liberty, Reilly said.
Her work takes her to different areas in the west and during a visit with friends, she learned of the opposition the Liberty plant is incurring.
Having worked with the Canadian government and several California cities about the ever-growing need for safe sewage sludge practices, Reilly said the widely used land-application process could be a thing of the past.
“People tend to think that if you put it on a farm field it’s a good thing,” Reilly said. “If you incinerate it it’s a bad thing.
“Meanwhile incineration technology with extremely low emissions has really taken off,” Reilly said.
The sludge debate is heating up as metropolitan areas look for ways to dispose of the waste and areas like the Imperial Valley are being sought because of the amount of land and open space available for construction.
All eyes are on California, Reilly said, as it is traditionally at the forefront of new advances in green energy.
But it’s the kind of industry a community-based organization, Residents for Health and Safety First, said could be dangerous to the environment.
The group claims the proposed plant near Niland would increase mercury and other heavy metal emissions into an environment already plagued with high particulate matter pollution.
“The issue in our books is this is an industry that isn’t attractive to the image and health for our residents,” Jim Harvie, a spokesman for the group, said.
THE HEALTH CONCERNS
According to Liberty Energy’s proposal making its way through the county, the design of the sludge-to-energy plant would eliminate virtually all the chemicals found in sludge and would exceed the Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions requirements.
Reilly said her research concurs with that of Liberty’s.
“Even if all of the L.A. sludge were burned in that facility, it would have less mercury emissions than currently being emitted by Imperial Valley practices,” Reilly said.
According to a document from the Imperial County Environmental Health Department, much of the county’s sludge is now trucked out of the state to Arizona for land application.
Before it is transported, sludge is spread out on the ground to dry outside wastewater treatment plants.
Other plants transport the sludge to an area landfill. And some is left out to dry — some wastewater treatment plants have not disposed of sludge in more than 10 years.
“Sludge is retained in drying beds or lagoons for periods ranging from several months to several years,” the report says.
The level of technology proposed by Liberty, Reilly said, would actually leave a smaller “environmental footprint.”
Incineration accounts for 5 percent of all biosolids disposal in California, where more than half of the sludge (54 percent) is land-applied.
And although local sludge is regularly trucked through the Valley on its way to Arizona, Harvie said the group takes issue with the importation of sludge from other places.
“Arizona is a willing taker of sludge,” Harvie said. His group also is opposed to the incineration of any kind of sludge, including cow manure generated by local feed lots.
MAINTAINING AN IMAGE
But Reilly said she believes there is more at the heart of the issue for most sludge opponents.
Given the agricultural base of the county, Reilly said it is natural for the community to be nervous that they will become known as a dumping ground.
“The thought is ‘no one’s going to degrade us with their sludge,’” Reilly said.
The move from land application to incineration, Reilly said, is the wave of the future and is the best option available above land application and landfill usage.
“If I were a citizen, I would look into what’s being proposed and take up the offer to understand the technology,” she said.
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