I’m writing today to express my disappointment and concerns about the recent CRD Open House on biosolids. Since the hosts opted to hide the number of participants, and since cameras, mikes and even the “chat” sidebar were disabled for participants, it was impossible to know if any CRD Board members attended, so please allow me to provide a quick recap highlighting a few ongoing serious concerns with this process:
- To start, what kind of “open house”, online or otherwise, starts by virtually gagging and masking attendees, and then spending two hours talking at them!!
Many CRD Board members and residents expressed significant concern with the official consultation plan initially presented by CRD consultants and staff, which ignored calls for the CRD to actually host a public event. However, I’m certain no one could have expected that the CRD would actually disable cameras, microphones, and even the “chat” capabilities on the Zoom, only to use this meeting clearly highlight once again – and in complete contradiction of Board direction and the CRD’s official policy – CRD staffs clear bias for land application options.The Cambridge Dictionary defines consultation as “the act of exchanging information and opinions about something in order to reach a better understanding of it or to make a decision, or a meeting for this purpose”. Therefore, it frustrates me tremendously to have to ask exactly what part of “open house” or “public consultation” does the CRD staff not actually understand?
Every time the CRD staff stage this kind of counter-productive, undemocratic exercise, they highlight that the CRD is unworthy of its moral, legal and regulatory obligations to safeguard our environment, and to listen to and reflect the concerns of local residents.
- The data shared via presentations by CRD staff and consultants was heavily biased, and did not reflect clear Board direction to a) identify the potential risks of land application; 2) provide an accurate historical overview of the long-standing ban on land application in the CRD; 3) accurately reflect current practices in US, EU and Asia.
While it was certainly highly disconcerting to start out the meeting by hearing the moderator was not sure what “PFAS” or “PAHs” meant and had therefore not prepared properly to moderate this discussion, the most egregious misrepresentation was that CRD staff and consultants were initially introduced as “experts in biosolids”. While they certainly clung to that title when touting the apparently endless benefits of land application, attendees then heard them say they were “by no means experts in biosolids” when it came time to address the potential harms of PFAS, microplastics, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals of concern. Mr. Kikham and Dr. Harris both continuously equated OMRR/Provincial oversight and regulations re. land application as an assurance of safety, ignoring the hundreds of peer-reviewed studies readily available that highlight harms associated with the regulated application of biosolids, which include dispersal of microplastics and PFAS into the soil, waterways and watersheds where biosolids are applied. Mr. Kikham glibly addressed concerns over wind and rain dispersal by saying he’d never actually found a purported study showing biosolids could travel up to 10kms from the site of application, so to correct the record now and into the future, I invite Mr. Kikham to review the following study showing that microplastics can actually travel over 95kms from their initial site, which is why, as has been widely reported for a number of years, PFAS and microplastics have been found in the remotest parts of the Arctic and Antarctic.
Since Dr. Harris continues to express full confidence in the Provincial and Federal regs governing land application – neither of which actually regulate the concentration of PFAS, microplastics, and pharmaceuticals in biosolids – I would suggest the CRD Board take full advantage of his expertise as a toxicologist by inviting him to summarize the findings of the 2023 scoping review of the harms associated with land application for the Board and staff, which found the following in its review of 172 recent studies):
Microplastics:
…microplastic concentrations were significantly correlated with biosolids applications.
…studies have repeatedly detected microplastics at significant distances from their source of origin and at higher elevations, indicating their susceptibility to becoming airborne.
Inhalation of microplastics is associated with oxidative stress in lung tissues, along with general inflammatory responses in airways and bronchi and chronic exposure can lead to death.
PFAS:
A more recent study investigating the impact of land applying biosolids on the occurrence, concentration, and distribution of PFAS in soils and groundwater detected PFAS in all near surface soil samples (< 30 cm below ground surface), in more than 83% of soils between 30 and 90 cm below ground surface, and in the immediately underlying groundwater.
PFAS can cause adverse health impacts even at ultra-low concentrations, and have been found to bioaccumulate in animals and humans in lung, kidney, liver, brain, and bone tissue.
PFAS exposure is associated with reproductive and developmental, liver and kidney, and immunological effects, as well as tumors in laboratory animals. In addition, inhalation of PFAS can cause acute lung toxicity and inhibit lung surfactant function.
Pharmaceuticals and personal care products:
Studies investigating the occurrence and distribution of pharmaceuticals in biosolids following wastewater treatment indicate that pharmaceuticals find their way into the environment mainly through the land spreading of biosolids.
Preliminary evidence has suggested potential risks that are similar to those observed in aquatic species and these compounds have been implicated as potential contributors to diabetes, cancer, fertility decline, and a host of other environmental and public health issues.
Ultra-low nanogram per liter (ng/L) concentrations have exhibited impacts to both humans and aquatic organisms, including hormonal interference in fishes, genotoxicity, carcinogenicity in lab animals, endocrine disruption, and immune toxicity.
And which concluded with the following:
The authors indicate that the precautionary principle needs to be applied consistently to ensure a clean and healthy environment for future generations, which is also why further studies on the risks induced by emerging pollutants, due to their specific environmental behavior, toxicity, and impacts on the environment and human health become essential.
Biosolids, in their current form, have often been referred to as an organic waste to be recovered and recycled. But given the presence of contaminants that originate from both domestic and industrial wastewater sources, is that really the appropriate designation in law or regulation?
As a society, if we fail to take definite policy actions to modernize environmental standards that pertain to the land application of biosolids, and continue to land apply layer upon layer of these complex mixtures of pollutants to our soil without adequate public health protections in place, and without regard to the long-term environmental consequences, we may potentially cause irreversible damage to the very soils we use to grow our food and to our surface and ground water that sustain life.
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Since this article represents an unbiased overview of the current state of scientific knowledge regarding the inevitable harms associated with the land application of biosolids, I suggest the CRD Board and public would find it very helpful to hear Dr. Harris summarize these findings, explain exactly which of the 172 studies that informed these conclusions he disagrees with and why, and finally, how the conclusions regarding the environmental and public health harms of microplastics, PFAS, and pharmaceuticals somehow wouldn’t apply or be relevant to potential land application in the CRD. We all look forward to this presentation by Dr. Harris, a toxicologist with a high level of comfort promoting nutrient-rich, biosolid-based fertilizer, but who’s expertise unfortunately doesn’t seem to extend to the well-researched harms associated with “forever chemicals” and other toxic substances found in biosolids.
In response to questions about which other jurisdictions have banned land application of biosolids, the speakers failed to mention that the entire state of Maine banned land application, that New Hampshire, New York and other states have significantly restricted land application, and that the overall trend in the US is moving away from land application and towards waste-to-energy. They also did not share that Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Slovakia and Japan have all banned land application, and that the CRD is therefore not some kind of outlier, but rather at the forefront of a growing trend in responsible biosolid management focused on environmental sustainability and protecting public health.
3. The lack of actual CRD engagement with key stakeholders, including regional Indigenous Bands. While CRD staff inaccurately reported to the Board and at last night’s open house that consultation re. land application of biosolids with Indigenous Bands was taking place, reports shared with the TCAC state that there has actually been no response so far from those same Bands. We’re very curious to find out how the Board feels about this, since it would seem to me that even considering land application on the ancestral, unceded territories of local Bands flies in the face of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and ignores the CRD Board’s commitment to engage in nation-to-nation discussions on key environmental and land use issues. Since the land application of biosolids will definitely impact water and soil quality both where it takes place as well as wherever wind and rain erosion transports PFAS, microplastics, PAHs, and other chemicals, and since Bands like the Pacheedaht have opposed land application in the past, it is remarkably egregious for any discussions of land application in the CRD to take place without first obtaining the explicit support of the Bands on whose land and watersheds biosolids would be applied.
Additionally, while the CRD staff at the open house kept touting the benefits of biosolids as a cheap fertilizer, they failed to share that regional farmers actually stand firmly against the land application of bisolids. The Peninsula and Area Agriculture Commission, which represents the Peninsula region’s farmers and food producers, supported the initial ban on land application in the CRD, a position they reiterated at their most recent meeting at Saanich City Hall a few weeks ago, where they unanimously passed a motion opposing land application in the CRD, with a letter to the CRD Board highlighting their views and concerns to follow.
This should be no real surprise, since Thrifties/Sobeys and other major local food purchasers and distributors have explicit policies not to purchase or sell food fertilized with or tainted by biosolids. Additionally, direct or indirect contamination from biosolids threatens the organic status of regional farms, and the sellability of any produce or food exposed to biosolids, whether that exposure is the result of direct fertilization or indirect contamination via wind and rain erosion and associated run-off.
It is shameful and inexcusable for the CRD to ignore the opinions of key stakeholders like the Indigenous Bands on whose land we all live, and our local food producers whose success and output we depend upon for our local food security.
- Finally, this consultation presented yet another missed opportunity to hear from actual unbiased experts that might address this serious environmental and public health issue. While head of the Sierra Club of BC in 2011, current Environmental Minister Heyman sent a letter to the CRD opposing the land application of biosolids and the Pengrow program, stating “Sierra Club BC would like to re-assert its strong support for the CRD ban on the land application of bio-solids passed by the Core Area Liquid Waste Committee last year, and to express our concern and opposition to the production and distribution of PenGrow by the Saanich Peninsula Waste Commission.” Despite Minister Heyman’s absence, the Sierra Club continues to be a leading voice on this important environmental issue in Canada and the US, and recently teamed with the PFAS Project Lab at Northeastern University on a study of PFAS contamination associated with land application that found that water ADJACENT to fields where biosolids had been applied had 9 times the level of PFAS than other fields due to runoff and transport into the water table.
In other words, while Mr. Kikham and Dr. Harris repeatedly cited their lack of expertise in addressing the potential harms of biosolids, the CRD certainly could have reached out to the Sierra Club, UVic, the UBC Pollution Lab, the Georgia Strait Alliance, the Raincoast Conservation Foundation and other NGOs with actual expertise on the “forever chemicals” and other toxic substances found in biosolids to provide accurate estimates of their harm and address the concerns of the public in an evidence-based manner…instead we had the pleasure of hearing ill-informed platitudes and unsupported assurances of safety from CRD staff and consultants, despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary.
With every misstep the CRD continues to take on this issue, with every false assurance and willful ignorance of the evidence, with every ill-informed or inadequate consultation with the public and – perhaps most notably – without local Indigenous Bands, farmers, and other key stakeholders and experts, the public rightfully loses faith in the process and in those overseeing it, and the CRD makes itself increasingly liable for any of the well-known and predictable harms associated with the land application of biosolids. This includes the senior CRD staff that continue to misrepresent the CRD Board position on land application, and to ignore clear Board direction on this important environmental and public health issue. It also includes the CRD Board, which cannot continue to ignore the readily available, inarguable evidence of harms, indulge the ongoing dissemination of misinformation by staff, or the misleading of residents rightfully concerned about this issue.
By the way, while I applaud CRD jurisdictions that have opted to consider lawsuits against fossil fuel manufacturers for degrading our environment and the resulting climate change, you should all be aware that the legal arguments regarding liability underpinning such lawsuits are identical to those identified in the UVic Environmental Law Society review from 2011/13 that found the CRD would be liable if it proceeded with land application, and which more recently resulted in the successful $10 billion lawsuit by the State of California against 3M for contaminating drinking water. Just like fossil fuel companies, toxic chemical manufacturers or tobacco producers that continued to pursue actions deleterious to human health despite being aware of evidence highlighting unavoidable harms, the CRD is clearly liable in exactly the same manner if it pursues strategies involving the land application of biosolids in the face of overwhelming evidence of well-known and unavoidable harms.
The CRD has a moral, ethical and legal obligation to protect our local environment and public health, and far too many of you are failing the public in this most important of your many responsibilities as civil servants and elected officials. As local residents and taxpayers, we all deserve so much better than this, and we demand that you address the unacceptable situation described above right now.
A good start would be to hold a proper in-person open house with the goal of actually engaging with the public, and which would include representation by local Indigenous Bands, regional academic experts on biosolids and the chemicals they contain, as well as farmers/food producers. Are we all to believe that proper public consultation is actually beyond the scope and ability of the CRD? Unfortunately, after last night’s debacle, that is certainly the impression left on the general public in attendance.
Philippe Lucas PhD
Biosolid Free BC