The Capital Regional District (CRD) in Victoria, BC, Canada has a long-standing and popular ban on the land application of biosolids. This is a crucial regulation that protects our local drinking water, environment and public health. Biosolids contain PFAS, microplastics, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals and other toxic contaminants that pose risks to our forests, farms, watersources, and human and environmental health when applied to land.
According to a 2023 scoping review of 172 studies examining the harms resulting from the land application of biosolids published in the Journal of Environmental Health, these contaminants can persist in soils for decades after biosolid application, and can have negative impacts on human health in even miniscule amounts. The authors conclude that “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.”
We must continue prioritizing our region’s environment and public health over the short-term convenience or unsustainable policies and practices. Therefore, we urge CRD Directors and other elected officials within Greater Victoria to maintain the longstanding ban on the land application of biosolids in the CRD, and to support sustainable thermal conversion technologies like gasification that can create fossil-free energy and destroy the toxic chemicals and pathogens found in biosolids.
Please sign this petition if you believe in protecting our region’s food security, water quality and environmental and public health for future generations.
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We are residents of Greater Victoria that support the long-standing CRD ban on the land application of biosolids in order to protect our natural environment, drinking water and public health from the dispersal of PFAS, microplastics, pharmaceuticals and other toxic contaminants.
As local residents, we urge the CRD Board of Directors and staff to maintain the ban on the land application of biosolids in the CRD, and to pursue sustainable waste-to-energy strategies such as thermal conversion to safely manage our region’s biosolids.
I support the ban of biosolids in any area of our region, and bio-region. New data supports the health risks associated with application.
Waste-to-energy using thermal conversion technology to protect people, the land, waterways, underground lakes, and all associated with the bioregion that live within it. Species at risk are already at high risk within this globally recognized Biosphere.
Climate change demands adopting new ways of thinking about our collective future living on the inner coastal waters of the sensitive Salish Sea.
I the CRD’s decision to ban of biosolids over a decade ago.