State may lift ban on using treated sewage as fertilizer

TRENTON, N.J. -- State regulators may soon expand the use of treated sewage as a fertilizer.

New Jersey's Agricultural Development Committee has proposed lifting a long-standing ban on fertilizing farms in the Farmland Preservation Program with sludge, the solids left over after liquid waste is treated and piped to streams, rivers and the ocean.

The state Department of Environmental Protection may also follow suit and use sludge-fertilizer on other state-controlled land, but that decision won't be made until further study is done on the potential health risks involved with the plan.

The current proposals would only allow the use of sludge that lives up to the federal standards of "exceptional quality," and farms in the preservation program would not be able to use sludge on food crops _ only on sod, nursery plants and animal feed.

Advocates note that sludge disposal costs have soared since it was banned from oceans and state landfills a decade ago, and many studies have since failed to find any link between sludge-based fertilizer, known as biosolids, and health problems.

However, some environmentalists and scientists have attacked the plan. They note that besides human waste, the sludge may also contain various contaminants, such as fire retardants, heavy metals and detergent ingredients.

The Agricultural Development Committee has scheduled a July 28 hearing on the matter, and a vote on the proposal could come as soon as Aug. 28.

Thirteen plants in New Jersey now make sludge into fertilizer and, in 2001, about 47 percent of the 214,000 tons of sludge generated in New Jersey became fertilizer. The rest was used to cover landfills, incinerated or shipped out of state for disposal or recycling.

Nationwide, about 60 percent of sludge is applied to land, according to the National Academy of Sciences.

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