municipal sludge?

kyplowboy · Oct 8, 2008

Has any one on here ever had any dealings with municipal sludge or "biosolids" as some call it used as soil applied fertilizer? Just wandering as I set here at work watching grain prices drop like a rock and input prices not change'n much. I can get an unlimited supply. Every one I have talked to about it have said the paper work makes it more trouble than it's worth. The deal is every one around here that knows what all paper work is involved gets paid good money to "dispose" of it and kinda have the market cornered.

Thanks for your time.

Dave

Anonymous-0 · Oct 8, 2008

Scares the Heck out of me. It was a big thing here, back in the late 80's.. They would drive in a giant trike on flotation tires, and dump waste on pastures for free.. No telling what is in that sludge.. There were quite a few stories about dead cows and aborted calves, after grazing on sludge-treated pastures..

kyplowboy · Oct 8, 2008

Don't know any one here who puts it on pasture ground. All I know of round here goes on row crop ground. Grows some pretty good corn and beans. Don't know if I'd want it on pastures, but then again might not be much worse than broiler litter.

Thanks for your thoughts, I'm just kinda brains storm'n here.

Dave

Billpa · Oct 8, 2008

How much ground are you thinking about putting it on ?

Anonymous-0 · Oct 8, 2008

Is that a nice way of addressing human waste? It's real common here for barn waste to go in a container of some type (septic tank style) and be mixed with water, sucked up into a tank and sprayed on the fields. If hose waste goes in the same tank and someone finds out about it, it could get pretty costly. I could see plenty of disease being spread if you or your neighbors had to breath the stuff. Maybe the stuff has already been treated to eliminate this problem? Not for free......

I'd think real hard about it.

Dave

kyplowboy · Oct 8, 2008

Around 100 acres.

Dave

kyplowboy · Oct 8, 2008

Most of the time yes it is human waste, kinda. It is what is left after municipal waste has run thourh a waste water treatment plant. The waste water goes in to the plant, has air blown though it to get the bugs working. As it goes though differnet steps of the process, treated waste which is more dead bugs than anything like human poo settles to the bottom and is pumped to a press that seperates the water from the solid matteral.

What I can get is almost complety stuff that comes out of a municipal waste plant that treats water comeing out of a chicken processing plant. It has been composted and has no oder. It looks like the composted manure people buy at walmart to put on their flower beds.

Thank you for your time.

Dave

Anonymous-0 · Oct 8, 2008

May be OK. Gets pretty smelly around here when the farmers "Sh!t" on thier fields. Especially the pig farmers. As for pastures/hay, our horses won't touch hay from fields that are fertilized like that.

Good Luck,

Dave

Anonymous-0 · Oct 8, 2008

You never know what gets dumped in to sewer systems.Old solvents ,plating solutions etc.When I did code enforcement here I got all info that was sent to plumbers by the state.There was a warning about wearing latex gloves when working on septic lines an toilets because of aids.The stuff is tested for some things but I wonder what gets by.Plenty of disease is carried by human and animal waste.I would not want sewer waste spread on my land.I think the latest tomato pepper problem was caused by using municiple waste on fields.I had to handle well contamination caused by piling manure in bad places.One case comes to mind where the pile was 600 feet from the well.Manure was piled on ledge in an area that was full of springs.Fools that spread manure on frozen ground cause a lot of well pollution.There is plenty of bad press on sewerage sludge.

kyplowboy · Oct 8, 2008

Never could prove it, (no one wanted it proved) but the whole lot of poultry farmers in the green river watershed screwed up the whole river year and a half ago when the ground froze and then we had 8" of rain before it thawed good.

The treatment process is "supposed" to kill all the bad stuff. That being said, any body with this company who deals with untreated is recomended to get a hepatitis vaccination every year....

No wells down hill of my ground. Was just wander'n if anyone had ever used it. Broiler litter is very common round here and was just wander'n how sludge compared to it.

Thanks for your time.

Dave

ericlb · Oct 8, 2008

36 coupe is right, the next town up the valley is in all kinds of trouble with the epa for ' getting rid' of that paticular product theyve completly altered the bio chemical ballance in the local river, ruined numerous wells and other major problems, the epa is on them like a bear to a honey tree, and its going to be expencive too, you dont want anything to do with this stuff

VADAVE · Oct 8, 2008

I looked into it. It contains household waste and industrial waste. Industrial waste contains heavy metals which can poison the ground water IF the ph of the ground is off. So you either have to have your ground ph balanced or the sludge has to have lime added so the heavy metals are locked up. Also there is a limit to how much heavy metal can be applied to the ground so be careful.
The other thing that steered me away from using sludge is the conotation attached--that the ground is now contaminated so someone won't buy it for houses. If that is one of your exit strategies then again be careful.
You see that suggestion of contamination in the responses to your first question and those visiting this board should know better if anyone does.

Jack a · Oct 8, 2008

It will take some years but eventually the heavy metal content of your soil will get so high that you won't be able to do it any more. Do you really want that in your soil? It never goes away. The local big city near me wanted to do the same in our township but thankfully the township board did some research and decided against it.

Other townships nearby are getting to their limit on heavy metals from the sludge and the city is looking for new sites. Of course our governor raised the limit of heavy metal content so the city can dump in those other townships for now.

The city could get more of the heavy metals out but they wanted to do the job on the cheap. Also you have to think about all the medications you are adding to your water supply not to mention the pill that make fish with both female and male organs. I know what goes into the sewer system here cause I work in a lab and you are allowed to dump a certain amount of radioactive material down the drain and other things like ethidium bromide and bromphenal blue. Look those things up and decide.

Maybe the city you are dealing with doesn't have labs that work with that stuff but I'll bet there are plenty of other things and you'll find out they don't test for most things like ethidium bromide. Good luck.

showcrop · Oct 8, 2008

It appears from my research that in my area you can get sludge that is constantly tested and monitored, and comes with a bulletproof paper trail but you have to pay for it. Or you can get sludge which "could" contain up to a certain level of heavy metals, and they pay you.

John (C-IL) · Oct 8, 2008

Some of what the other posters have said is true. Some of what they say is pure poop.

The application of municipal sludge is highly regulated. Samples must be taken and analyzed for heavy metals and other toxic substances. From that point the application timimg and incorporation is also regulated to protect the environment.

The recipient of the waste shouldn't have to do much paperwork at all. The responsibility for the paperwork lies with the municipality and the applicator. If you are interested you should contact the supplying municipality and ask for copies of their most recent tests. Those test along with an application plan must be submitted to the EPA to get an application permit to apply municipal sludge.

Farmers applying livestock manure are not allowed to exceed 300ppm phosphorus levels on their fields. In contrast, municipalities are allowed 600ppm on the field they are applied to. As a matter of record, it takes a phosphorus level of 15-20 ppm to adquately supply a 200 bushel per acre corn crop.

Traditional Farmer · Oct 8, 2008

I agree the worries are way over rated as its probably the most checked,rechecked and analized
substance a farmer can find to put on their fields.

1936 · Oct 8, 2008

Heavy metals is the what if in the waste product.

OldFarmTractor · Oct 8, 2008

I tried to look up the first chemical but there was none spelled as you spelled it. As for the seocnd, it is aromatic. That makes it a bit more acceptable.

When one considers dumping radioactive substances down the drain, where did those substances come from in the first place? Do you feel that there is no radioactivity in the fertilizer you buy from the coop?

As in any situation, you put the fertilzer on a spot it really didn't come from and you change the that plot of land. Testing and more testing should be part of your daily activity.

But don't dump the test fluids on the ground.

JDemaris · Oct 8, 2008

I used it for several years and there wasn't any paperwork. That, I assume because I got it from a middleman. It was advertised in the regional Country Folk farm-newspaper until recently. Here in New York, the fields get acid pretty quick if you don't add lime every 5-10 years. The nice advantage to this "treated sludge" was it had a heavy lime content. It was supposed to be 66% lime. Part of the treatment process, I guess. The first year it was free, second year we had to pay $10 per ton, next year the price got higher and I stopped using it. And, as others mentioned - there's the worry about heavy metals content. I'm not a chemist, so who knows? I don't believe for a minute that any guidelines or regs prevent such pollutants from being in the stuff. But, when it was free - it was a good deal.

My first (ex) wife - over 30 years ago - worked as a secretary for a sod company in northern New Jersey. They got many "midnight" deliveries of untreated septic sludge and it made their sod grow like crazy. But, they got busted - and several participants got put in jail.

greygoat · Oct 8, 2008

We had a meeting here in Western Wisconsin, at
town board level, about writing an ordanance,
and how to word it. One of the words was "filth"
and a farmer said, "How do you define filth"
and I said, "easy--it"s what you want to put on
your fields". Same farmer said that the smell
didn"t bother him at all, and someone said,"thats
because it smells like money, to you".
My worry is the heavy metals, but an article in
the St. Paul Pioneer Press newspaper said that
all of the male carp in the mississippi river
below the twin cities sewage plant are gay, and
don"t want to breed any more, and it"s because
of the female hormones from birth control pills
being extruded in urine, and going into the
wastewater. Nobody knows the long term results
of such byproducts going into land and water.

Anonymous-0 · Oct 8, 2008

Hey Kyplowboy where in Ky are you located .I would be interest in the sludge myself im North of Bowling Green

Jack a · Oct 8, 2008

They don't have the time or money to check for some of the very toxic materials in the sludge. They say they check for toxins. Then you ask them about ethidium bromide and other mostly unknown toxins and they will have a blank look on their face. Seen it myself. They also don't check for the estrogen.

Jack a · Oct 8, 2008

First one scientific full name: 2,7-Diamino-10-ethyl-9-phenylphenanthridinium bromide. May cause heritable genetic damage.

As far as out of the bottle they are dangerous to breath but we make them liquid in order to use them. You really don't want that in your soil or water.

Jack a · Oct 8, 2008

Think of this. After a heavy rain the sludge and dirt containing mixed in sludge can be washed from a field, that may or may not have the correct pH, to a slew area that clearly will not have the correct pH and will let the heavy metals to your ground water. Big can of worms.

Jack a · Oct 8, 2008

Here I believe dairy cows aren't allowed by law to graze land with sludge applied because it gets in the milk.

Jack a · Oct 8, 2008

They don't check many many things though.

Anonymous-0 · Oct 8, 2008

We had a neighbor use some form of it a few years ago. Couldn't figure out why it never helped his crops. We found out the analysis on it was 0-0-0!

VADAVE · Oct 8, 2008

Ah but you are supposed to have cut the sludge in with a disc.

Jack a · Oct 8, 2008

Does that stop washouts? As no body is really checking these things until there is a fish kill, who's to say it gets disced in before the coming rain tonight?

kyplowboy · Oct 8, 2008

I am between Henderson and Madisonville. With the trucking it would be pretty high to get it that far. I would bet anything that Bowling Green, and alot of the other bigger towns that way pay some one to dispose of the stuff. If you can find out who it is they may let you have it. Drive by the local waste water plants and get a name off the door of one of the trucks getting loaded out. Thing you would have to be carefull of is them sink holes. Don't know exactly where you are but I used to know alot of people down that way and they get kinda up tight about anything around sink holes. I know they come unglued if some cow manure gets in that big cave down there.

Dave

Anonymous-0 · Oct 8, 2008

Dave, We have used city sludge for over 30 years with no problems, about 2to3,000,000 gallons a year. The city samples the loads every day they haul, and then each field is soil tested every year,(10-15 samples an acre) and then a complete analysis is given to me. The DNR also monitors this closely. The city does all the paper work, hauling, and aappling. It is all knifed in about 6-8 inches deep, with no hauling on frozen ground. Our use of commercial fertizer is almost nil. The humus has really improved.
I would not be afraid of it as long as you oversee the application to make sure they don't haul when ground it to wet,etc. You might want to start with just a few acres and do a soil test to see how it changes your soil.

Anonymous-0 · Oct 9, 2008

Poultry manure is hot stuff;pit manure will burn the grass,you can see where the spreader has been.Earth worms come up and eat manure then take it down into the soil.You can see this process in the spring time after the ground thaws.Plenty of fishing worms can be had by tipping over cow flaps with a rake.Pulling up old corn stalks will produce a lot of earth worms.Ive seen leptospirosis spread by spreading pig manure where cattle graze.I talked with a farmer who got lepto when he was castrating a bull calf.He was in the hospital for 2 weeks, very sick.This disease will cause abortion in cattle.While most farmers get covered with manure at times with no ill effect, some do get very sick.I understand that manure spreading is controlled in the Maryland Delaware area.Manure spread on frozen ground will run off and pollute water supplies.I worked at a poultry hatchery for 3 years in the early 60s and learned a lot about manure borne disease.

municipal sludge?

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