PRC hopes to enter sewer age; China is importing state-of-the-art technology and know-how to advance its waste-treatment infrastructure as it prepares to host the 2008 Summer Olympic Games

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Dec 10, 2002 | by Sheila R. Cherry

Officials within the EPA confidentially admit that the heavy-handedness and tunnel vision of the agency's ecology ideologues when the policy on sludge was created are partially to blame for the public-relations nightmare the agency and industry now suffer. Nevertheless, some antisludge activists now are so angry they are making little or no distinction in their resistance to applying even Class A sludge to the land. The Pennsylvania Environmental Network's Tina Daly, for instance, tells INSIGHT she now wants neither Class B nor Class A sludge in her community.

Both the sludge industry and the EPA know there is big trouble over sludge. The National Biosolids Partnership (NBP), an industry newsletter, chronicles the frosty reception land-applied sludge is receiving from neighborhoods forced to live around it. "Supported by opposition groups, residents living close to fields where biosolids are being applied increasingly are opposed to the recycling of biosolids in spite of the known benefits to agriculture," according to one article cited by the NBP. The article summarized a report in which "the information consulted indicates that applying biosolids, particularly those originating from municipal wastewater treatment, may represent a potential source of airborne biological agents (bioaerosols)."

Meanwhile, the People's Republic of China has been watching the waste-treatment controversy. "The Chinese have backed into a pretty tough situation," says Shepherd. "There is not a lot of time here." Still, starting from scratch does have its benefits. "They may bypass Class B sludge altogether," he says.

SHEILA R. CHERRY IS A WRITER FOR Insight.