Ag advisory board recommends moratorium on biosolids

PALMER — No poop from people on Mat-Su Borough farmland.

That’s a parsed-down version of a resolution passed unanimously by the Agriculture Advisory Board on Wednesday.

The resolution recommends the assembly “establish a moratorium on soil application of sewage, sludge and domestic septage on borough-owned land, and refer the generation application practice to the planning commission for further evaluation in regard to land-use practices.”

After the meeting, chair Norman Harris said that the application of what are more nicely termed biosolids, or recycled sewage products, on private pasture agricultural land at Point MacKenzie spurred research into the practice by the advisory board.

“The cities of Palmer and Wasilla are always looking for ways to dispose of their sewage sludge cost-effectively,” Harris said, “and in the lower 48, one of the things they do is the application to farm lands and other private lands.”

He said that current borough agricultural land covenants don’t preclude the use of application of biosolids.

“Putting biosolids on is considered to be an agricultural use in the lower 48,” he said. “The problem is, they’re starting to realize they have a lot more chemicals in them that don’t necessarily disappear. We’ve seen research coming out of the lower 48, and some of these issues are going to be considerable if we don’t figure them out in advance.”

Harris noted there’s also little data on how biosolids behave long-term in the soil of cold climates, where composting processes are slowed.

During discussion, board members cited concerns about persistent pollutants, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, and viruses getting into the soil, and ultimately, food crops.

Board member James Skinner cited the need for an “alternative plan” for disposing of biosolids from the Mat-Su Borough, that could see it used for energy generation instead of applied as fertilizer in soils.

"I think we need to be alert on how to encourage our assembly to put in a proper disposal unit,” he said.

Jon Olsen raised the importance of maintaining public trust in Mat-Su Borough farm products.

“This is so important,” he said. “If it gets out that somebody is dumping on farmland in the borough, it would be a mean thing for the farmers, and people would not buy from farmers in that case, even if they aren’t dumping on their land.”

Biosolids are used in agricultural land in other places in Alaska. In June 2016, a Fairbanks farmer had his conditional-use permit for applying biosolids from his septic tank pump company to his farm revoked. The revocation came after the Fairbanks North Star Borough Planning Commission found that the size of the business owner’s sewage collection sites, at five sewage lagoons, exceeded that which had been approved in the permit.

Harris said there’s nothing the advisory committee can do when it comes to recommending regulations on private agricultural land. Instead, it’s devoted to simplifying and clarifying regulations on the 11,545 acres of borough-owned agricultural property. Farmers purchase rights to farm on such land, but do not purchase the land itself.

The safety of biosolids is controversial, and there are varying state and federal regulations that determine how it should be treated before being applied as fertilizer. A Government Accountability Office report in June 2011 acknowledged efforts to improve the safety of biosolids applications and disposal, in general, but cited data gaps in the monitoring for antibiotics.

The report noted previous research that showed that antibiotic drugs in biosolids get into the environment in a myriad of ways under current practices, leading to increases in environmental populations of antibiotic-resistant pathogens.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency webpage on biosolids reassures they are safe for use in agriculture.

“The National Academy of Sciences has reviewed current practices, public health concerns and regulator standards,” it states, “and has concluded that ‘the use of these materials in the production of crops for human consumption when practiced in accordance with existing federal guidelines and regulations, presents negligible risk to the consumer, to crop production and to the environment.’”

Board member Jenny VanderWeele, referring to a map of borough ag land, said there is “precious little” of this type of land in the borough in the first place, and that it’s important to protect it.

“We’re behind the trend mostly in the lower 48, and that’s a positive,” VanderWeele said. “We don’t have to make the same mistakes they have made. We can learn from them, because there’s no studies that show conclusively that once that’s in the soil, that it ever goes away.”