By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) is tweaking a proposed rule for an exemption limit on radium contained in sewage sludge applied to farm fields.
The rule, first proposed in 2009 by the Illinois Emergency Management Agency (IEMA), would provide an exemption from radioactive waste licensing and fees for applications of sewage sludge containing up to 200 picocuries per gram of radium, according to Michael Klebe, an engineer with the IEMA’s Bureau of Environmental Safety.

“There is an agricultural benefit to sewage sludge. Throughout Illinois it is applied as an agricultural fertilizer, providing valuable nutrients to crops,” Krebe said. “We’re trying to develop a rule that recognizes that and doesn’t prohibit it, because it represents a cost savings to a farmer and it provides a means of disposing of this material.

“On the flip side, we don’t want to have a rule that is too liberal and we end up with radioactively-contaminated sites.”
Deep bedrock aquifers common to northern Illinois contain water with naturally-occurring levels of radium, which communities must remove to meet U.S. EPA drinking water standards, Krebe explained.

“As part of the treatment processes used to remove radium, residuals are backwashed to the sanitary sewer and the radium ends up in the sewage sludge,” he said. “This rule provides a framework for the management of sewer treatment sludge and water treatment residuals as non-radioactive waste. It also provides some parameters for landfills.”

Sewage sludge containing 50 picocuries or less of radium per gram could be placed in a sanitary landfill or used for agricultural fertilizer, though applying sludge containing 50-200 picocuries would require permission from the IEPA.

“We will evaluate that on a case-to-case basis in terms of whether or not the proposed disposition is acceptable,” Klebe said.
Many communities dispose of their sewer sludge by contracting with a commercial land application company, which removes the sludge and sells it to farmers – who have been using municipal sewer sludge as fertilizer since the 1930s – and other users. In communities such as Joliet, enough sewage sludge is produced that the city hired its own soil agronomist to market and distribute the sludge to landowners.

The city of Joliet sparked the IEPA’s and IEMA’s interest in setting parameters for radium content in sewer sludge when it asked the state to double the concentration of radium allowable in sludge for its farmers in the south suburbs. On March 4, the IEPA denied the request.

Joliet city officials maintain that costs for removing radium have become too expensive for the town to bear. Joliet officials said they spend about $10 million per year to remove radium, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The IEMA’s previous limit was 0.1 picocurie per gram of radium, though Joliet had received an exemption allowing up to 0.4 picocurie. Joliet sought a new limit of 1 picocurie per gram, while the IEMA proposed raising the radium limit for all two dozen or so northern Illinois communities that are licensed to dispose of concentrated radium on farmland to 0.4 picocurie per gram, the newspaper reported.

A public hearing held in Oglesby (LaSalle County) Oct. 27 attracted officials from various municipalities and at least one commercial land application company, though no agricultural interests were present, according to Krebe.

“The purpose of this meeting was to collect economic impact data,” he said. “We were able to collect useful information in terms of what this rule means economically to these communities. Did we hear from the detractors? Of course.”

Most of the communities represented at the hearing testified against the rule, Klebe said, calling the proposed exemption limit too conservative.

According to the LaSalle-Peru News-Tribune, Bureau County Board member Joe Bassetti of Spring Valley asked IEMA officials about the broader environmental impacts of spreading sludge and the resulting odor during the public hearing. Tom Walsh, a LaSalle County Board member from Ottawa, inquired about monitoring applications of sludge on farmland and how to enforce the proposed radium limit.

Klebe told Walsh that regulations and civil penalties are already in place for violators, and that IEMA would determine radium concentrations in sludge from reports provided by sludge “generators” provided by the IEPA, according to the News-Tribune.
Though area Farm Bureau officials were invited to the hearing, “None spoke verbally at the meeting,” reported Krebe.

Comments from the meeting and two earlier hearings, along with written submissions, will be reviewed by a state joint Committee on Administrative Rules in coming weeks.