The first annual Nova Scotia Soil Conference, held this past March 13th, shone the spotlight of the world on Halifax's waste management practices. Attended by upwards of two hundred, the conference included impassioned speeches by scientists, representatives from industry, and concerned citizens' groups. Paying deference to the Mi'kmaq Nation, upon whose traditional territory the conference was held, Mi'kmaw elders led off the day with a smudge ceremony, and later sang a traditional drum song.

At the eye of the sludge-storm is the current practice of taking Greater Halifax's sewage waste and shipping it to the 'N-Viro' plant in Aerotech park, about forty kilometres outside of town. There the waste is 'treated' with cement kiln dust and is eventually re-sold across Nova Scotia as a fertilizer.

In an attempt to assure an increasingly wary public that their product is indeed safe for soil application, N-Viro argues that their product is a Canadian Food Inspection Agency-approved fertilizer, a 'Class A' biosolid fertilizer no less.

“There's quite a difference between Class A and Class B, and non-treated (sewage sludge).” says Lise LeBlanc, of LP Consulting, speaking on behalf of N-Viro. “When people talk about it, they group everything the same, and they're not even close to being the same in terms of metal content, substances of concern content, pathogen levels, those sorts of things. They're very different from each other.”

The difference is only in the semantics, says Dr. David Lewis, one of the key speakers at the Soil Conference. Lewis is a microbiologist whose thirty-plus year career at the US Environmental Protection Agency was terminated after he published findings linking the application of Class B biosolids to severe illness and death. This put him into direct conflict with the EPA's 'Sludge Rule 503', developed by his boss at the time.

“The technical distinction between Class A and Class B rests solely on the levels of certain 'indicator' bacteria, such as E-coli and salmonella.” says Lewis. “The distinction has nothing to do with metal concentrations or the concentrations of organic chemical groups, pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals, etcetera.”

“I liken it to cooking a turkey.” Lewis continues. “When you take a turkey home from the store...it is contaminated with various bacteria. You cook it, and as soon as you take it out of the oven, you start to eat it. But if you let it set around for a number of hours, outside...and then eat it, you're very likely to get sick. The same applies with sewage sludge. There's a reason why...pathogenic bacteria are present in raw sewage. It's because the nutrients are there that they grow on. If you were to treat the sludge with...the processes that N-Viro uses for Class A, as soon as that sludge is processed, and tested...it is safer, at that moment in time. But like that turkey taken out of the oven, give it a few days and those pathogens are going to regrow back to their original levels. So...what was Class A at some moment in time, if you retest it, it would be back to Class B.”

The HRM, which has imposed a moratorium on applying biosolids to municipal land, pending the results of a third-party study (which has not even begun yet), finds itself in a unique position. A study with negative results could provide the proverbial 'foot in the door', that might make the ban permanent, and municipality-wide. And as goes the HRM, so might go the rest of Nova Scotia.

But while outside spring has indeed sprung, the city's response remains locked in hibernation. Since the ban was imposed on November 16th of 2010, the city of Halifax has not even selected the third-party to undertake the study. Marilyn Cameron, chair of the Biosolids Caucus of the Nova Scotia Environmental Network, and evidently tired of waiting, shipped off a sample of N-Viro Soil to Dr. Robert Hale, at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Dr. Hale is recognized as a world leader in biosolids testing.

Sample studies of this nature can be prohibitively expensive, but even on a shoestring budget Dr. Hale's study found that Cameron's N-Viro Soil sample contained:

"Substantial concentrations of brominated flame retardants, especially BDE209...BTPTE (1,2- bis(2,4,6-tribromophenoxy)ethane) and TBPH (bis(2-ethylhexyl) tetrabromophthalate)...polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), likely derived from petroleum products...Nonylphenols (from commercial detergents)...(and) methytriclosan."

Hale notes that an in-depth study could quite possibly have even more negative findings.

The city of Halifax, for its part, appears sadly confused by the entire issue. Their web-site claims that:

“N-Viro Soil is also not used in the production of food crops in Nova Scotia.”

The very next sentence, however, reads:

“The latest provincial guidelines only allow for the highest quality biosolids on agricultural lands. Agricultural Land is described in the provincial guidelines as land on which food, feed, or fibre crops are grown. This includes range land and/or land used as pasture.”

Whether or not Halifax knows where N-Viro Soil goes, Cameron has been crisscrossing the province, speaking to farmers, and in the process has gathered a rough picture of who's buying it, and who's not. She has created a network of friendly farmers, who have made the promise not to purchase N-Viro Soil. At the Soil Conference, one farming friendly approached her with an interesting piece of news. Cameron recounts the story here:

“In early March the industry likely needed to move overflowing product from their facility and some farmers in the municipality of Colchester obliged them. Some of the neighbours noticed that there were big piles of it here and there on a lot of snow. And somebody reported that to me.”

That somebody also took a few damning photos of massive piles of N-Viro Soil sitting on snow, and saturated ground. This puts N-Viro in direct violation with “Approval #2010-070726”, issued by the Department of Environment, signed between N-Viro and the Halifax Regional Water Commission.

Section 7.2 of the Guidelines of N-Viro's approval reads:

Land application of municipal biosolids must not occur when the ground is frozen, snow covered or saturated……nor applied to land during or immediately following heavy rains or when heavy rains are forecasted…..to protect adversely affecting the environment via surface run off….

Section 8.0 of the Guidelines reads:

Stock piling at the site prior to application is considered temporary if it is less than 1 week (and if greater than 20% solids) …….otherwise, other arrangements (cover, storage building, etc.) will be required.

Section 5 (viii) reads:

Exceptional Quality biosolids (Class A) shall not be land applied when the ground is frozen, snow covered, or saturated. The Department of Environment requires that Tracking information be retained by the Approval holder. ie. Location of farm, trucking carrier, tonnage shipped, product label, MSDS, date of pick up and delivery signature of driver, signature of farmer.

It would appear that N-Viro is in non-compliance with its approval guidelines, which is illegal, and which should, according to the approval, result “in a cancellation or suspension of the Approval.” Cameron notes that all MLAs in Nova Scotia have been alerted to this issue, but none has acted as of yet.

For her part, Cameron has a legal opinion on file that has concluded that it is well-within a municipality's rights to initiate a complete ban on N-Viro Soil from it's jurisdiction. Whether or not the Province continues on a path of inaction, the municipal realm need not follow suit.  

Dr. David Lewis sums up the danger of remaining idle on the issue:

"Sewage sludge contains thousands of compounds (that are) going to be around throughout our lifetime, our children's lifetime, our grandchildren's lifetime...The idea that you can put sewage sludge which is a mixture of all of the industrial waste generated in that area wherever it's generated...the idea that you could put it somewhere and it's not going to go everywhere else in the world is untrue."

" It will move everywhere else, and many of these compounds accumulate, even thought they are in very low concentrations, say in soil or water. When you check human fat tissue, or breast milk in women who are nursing children, you'll find that these compounds do magnify and accumulate in certain tissues. They magnify up the food chains. So they may be in very low concentrations when they get spread out in our environment, but they do tend to accumulate in certain food chain crops, and tissues in the body, so for that reason, sewage sludge, which is a mixture of every single industrial waste byproduct generated today, needs to be looked at in terms of how we look at DDT and how we look at other very persistent compounds."