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difficult waste management problems today. 
Where sludges are relatively free of such contaminants, such 
as, I understand, is the case in the sludge produced here in 
Washington, D.C., logic tells us that the sludge should be utilized 
for value as a soil amendment, or as fertilizer. That logic, 
however, has been all but lost on the general public, which tends 
to view sewage sludge as a "toxic" waste. Public pressure has 
Made it all but impossible to site a land application or composting 
facility, or even a landfill, for the utilization or disposal of 
sewage sludge today. In southern California, we recently completed 
a 6-year study to develop a comprehensive sludge management plan 
for the Los Angeles and Orange County metropolitan area, the "LA/ 
OMA" study, where public opposition to environmentally sound land 
alternatives made a shambles of the whole exercise. As a result 
of LA/OMA's "looking at" possible soil amendment operations in 
the California deserts to the east, several counties have passed 
ordinances banning the “importation” of Los Angeles' sewage sludge 
into their jurisdictions. In my own situation, we recently held 
a series cf public hearings on alternative sites for land compost- 
ing Orange County's sludge. At one hearing alone, over 700 people 
turned out, all of whom appeared to be totally opposed to anything 
we might propose on land. These same pressures exist, tO a greater 
or lesser extent, everywhere you go in this country. 
There are legitimate concerns about the effect of placing 
certain sludges on agricultural lands where some elements in the 
sludge can enter the food chain and pose potential problems for 
public health and safety; and we are properly concerned that our 
ground water system not become contaminated. Similarly, the incin- 
eration of sludge is not free from potential health and environ- 
mental consequences that bear the most careful attention and con- 
sideration. In non-attainment areas, such as the City of Los 
Angeles, sludge incineration is simply not allowed. Incineration 
has some obvious health and environmental drawbacks, which must 
be weighed against those of land and ocean-based alternatives. 
The incineration process itself produces a residue, approximately 
one-third of the original dry solids, that is concentrated in 
heavy metals, and which may have to be handled in some municipal- 
ities as a "hazardous" waste. When incinerator temperatures are 
high enough to destroy synthetic organic compounds such as poly- 
chlorinated biphenyls (PCB's), they also volatilize certain metals, 
particularly mercury and cadmium, and pump these metals into the 
atmosphere. 
Regardless of what we call it, finding a resting place for 
sewage sludge is "disposal" of one of the residues of our society. 
As a fertilizer, sludge costs far more to dry and to prepare for 
use, and produces less fertilizer "value" per dollar invested 
than fertilizers from other sources. As an energy source, the 
major sewerage authorities are already recovering as much energy 
from sludce as can economically be produced, by anaerobic diges-— 
tion of tne sludge, a process that produces methane gas. To dry 
digested siudge to the point where it can be used as fuel, or 
