ALBANY COUNTY — Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy issued an executive order on Jan. 27, halting for 90 days the agricultural use of biosolids within county limits. 

With the stroke of a pen, McCoy became the latest in a line of public officials from across the country to acknowledge that, while biosolids have been used to fertilize farms for years, recent research has raised concerns about health and environmental issues.

For decades, America’s farmers were encouraged by the federal government to spread on their land very inexpensive — well, to the farmer anyhow — fertilizer from sewage-treatment facilities. But now, a growing body of evidence claims to show that yearslong use of dried-up human waste and whatever else people felt like flushing down the toilet can be toxic to the land. 

While New York state continues to promote recycling, some municipalities have enacted bans on the use of processed sewage to fertilize farmland.

This municipal-filtered waste, known as biosolid, researchers claim, contains heavy metals, like lead and mercury, numerous diseases, as well as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAs, the so-called forever chemicals. 

Albany County’s 90-day fertilizer freeze was prompted by calls it had received about two area farms. The moratorium, McCoy told The Enterprise, “Gives us the authority to go on their property to investigate. And it also gives us the authority to start looking into other farms to see if they’re using it.”

“It comes in from Massachusetts and it comes in from other areas,” McCoy said of the biosolids used in Albany County. “So it goes under the radar and it goes to these farmers, right?”

McCoy continued, “And then here’s where it gets good for the farmers, the salesperson basically says it’s a safer way of doing it, right? In some cases, they’re giving it to them for free, or giving them money to take it.”

The sludge being used to fertilize those farms, McCoy said, it’s “from bathrooms, kitchens, [and] later used as a fertilizer,” after it’s been neutralized and effectively becomes “enriched waste”

The sludge McCoy was referring to, biosolid, is the byproduct of municipal sewage plants’ treatment of wastewater from household bathrooms and kitchens, local industries, and the sewer system itself.

By the numbers

One 2018 study from the state found New York’s total waste stream generation was 42.2 million tons per year. Included in that figure is all municipal solid waste (MSW), 45 percent of the total stream; construction and demolition debris, which makes up 46 percent; non-hazardous industrial waste, 5 percent; and biosolids, 4 percent.

As for how the state’s waste and recycling industries deal with disposing of over 4o million tons of waste each year, the huge undertaking includes burying trash: 32 percent here at home and 17 percent that gets trucked or trained out of state while 8 percent is set on fire; the remaining 43 percent is recycled.

The recycling rate for New York’s municipal solid waste — which by weight category is made of up 32 percent paper products; 17 percent food scrap, 14 percent plastics; 7 percent yard waste; 7 percent metals; 5 percent textiles; 4 percent glass; 3 percent wood; and another 11 percent that falls under the miscellaneous category — falls far behind the total waste stream. 

Close to 40 percent of municipal solid waste gets buried in New York landfills while another 27 percent gets exported out of state; 15 percent of municipal solid waste is burned; while the remaining 19 percent is recycled.

Biosolids appear to be the category of waste that both contributes to and are a byproduct of the state’s total waste stream. 

In 2018, the state identified about 610 publicly-owned treatment facilities that generated sewage sludge, 580 of which responded and whose work accounted for over 99 percent of wastewater treatment in New York and cumulatively reported having generated 1.3 million tons each year, or about 375,000 after being left to bake in the sun, after which 57 percent — 38 percent in- and 19 percent out-of-state — is placed in landfills.

Another 22 percent gets combusted and the remaining 22 percent is recycled. 

It’s the final 22 percent, the only portion of biosolid byproduct not to have ostensibly had a negative impact on the environment for years, which is now causing grave concern. That 61,000 tons of biosolid annually that is not burned or buried typically finds its way into agricultural settings, often being applied to farmland as a soil amendment.

Concerns

This process, according to researchers, is being felt up and down the food chain, as cows, for example, graze on contaminated grass and ingest its carcinogens, resulting in high levels of PFAs detected in their milk, which impacts both the most and highest volume of milk drinkers. 

About 90 percent of children under 12 consume milk, each averaging about 28 gallons per year. About 77 percent of teens, those between the ages of 13 and 17, take in about 22 gallons annually. Fifty-seven percent of the country’s 18-to-35 demographic consumes about 13 gallons of milk each year, while Americans between the ages of 50 and 59 annually drink 9 gallons.  

While the straight-forward process of applying biosolids to farmland has been felt by its immediate environment, direct fertilization has also had indirect impacts. 

The PFAs applied to farmland don’t just stay in that one place, causing all manner of sickness. Rather, the forever chemicals are swept away by stormwater, ending up in the local drinking-water supply, where they are ingested once again by farm animals and their farmers.

Some municipalities take on the state

New York state’s response to cancer-causing biosolids has been an attempt to expand their usage, with Governor Kathy Hochul proposing a very ambitious plan to recycle 85 percent of all waste in the state — which has a current rate of about 20 percent — by 2050.

But the state’s optimistic view of future recycling rates has been met head-on by its municipalities. 

The town of Thurston in Steuben County recently passed a law banning sewage sludge from being spread on local land. 

The law came in response to a quietly-conveyed plan from a company that operates landfills and composting sites in seven northeastern states to spread biosolid on 2,790 acres of land across three municipalities in Steuben County. 

Parts of the Southern Tier, Finger Lakes, and Western New York have been at loggerheads for years with the state over the right to ban the agricultural use of sewage sludge. In the past decade, for example, municipalities in Clinton, Wyoming, and Niagara counties were blocked by the state Department of Agriculture from enforcing similar laws — outcomes that were upheld on appeal.

Asked if he was inviting some sort of state action for his one-man moratorium against biosolids, McCoy said the halt would only help the county.

“So, again, these farmers” are told by fertilizer salesmen, “Hey, take this,  [you’re] spending X amount of money on fertilizer, and [the salesmen] they're saying, ‘Hey, I got a way that’s safer.’”

And when a farmer, a vocation with historically tight wages save for a handful of agricultural conglomerates making huge margins, is told someone is going to give them something they need to do their job for free — or even pay them, McCoy said, it doesn’t really sound like the farmer was using PFAs on purpose.

“When you go to the grocery store,” and see “how expensive stuff is,” McCoy said, “I don’t believe they’re [doing this] intentionally, and really all that’s required is a little education.”

The moratorium, McCoy said, provides the county with the time and authority needed to access the lands legally, test the water, and speak with owners about the situation. 

The county is also armed with the power to fine owners a $1,000 per day for not complying, but that’s “not what we’re looking to do,” McCoy said. “We’re not looking to fine these farmers.”

McCoy went on, “We want to work with them. We want to make sure to educate them on this topic, educate them what this damage could be doing to their animals, to their crops, their fields, and their water sources.”

He concluded, “Trust me, I don’t think you’ve ever met a farmer that does not protect and love their farm more than anything.”