State: Utility violating rules on sewage sludge

Johnson Utilities has been burying potentially dangerous sewage sludge near one of its wastewater treatment plants in violation of state rules, according to environmental regulators.

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Officials with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality showed up at a Johnson Utilities sewage plant nine miles southeast of Queen Creek in late September on an unannounced inspection that was launched after an anonymous complaint, according to DEQ records.

They found sewage sludge that would fill half a backyard swimming pool. About 34,713 gallons of the sludge was dumped in various trenches that also held construction debris.

Pictures taken at the scene show houses near uncovered trenches that contain sludge at Johnson Utilities Site 11 sewage plant.

The Department of Environmental Quality last week issued two violation notices and listed 15 separate infractions.

The infractions included failure to ensure that the sludge did not contaminate underground water supplies and failure to test the sludge - also called biosolids - for contaminates.

It's not the only time Johnson has run afoul of DEQ this year. The utility spilled raw sewage in May in a portion of Queen Creek Wash, polluting it for several months before it was disinfected.

"Biosolids are a potential human health hazard when not properly managed," wrote Mark Shaffer, spokesman for DEQ in an e-mail. "They are also very high in nutrients that might pollute drinking water supplies."

Sewage sludge is the byproduct of treating sewage and can contain infectious germs, toxins, heavy metals and nitrogen, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Johnson Utilities has been disposing of the sludge in landfills under a permit issued by DEQ and is not allowed to dispose or bury sludge at the site it was found.

However, in this instance, Johnson Utilities was simply storing sludge from some of the utility's other wastewater treatment plants at the Section 11 facility, said Lee Stein, an attorney with Perkins, Coie, Brown and Bain, which is representing Johnson.

Johnson Utilities was considering an agreement with another company to transport the sludge to be used as fertilizer on low-value crops - a growing, yet controversial trend in the waste management industry, Stein said.

The business venture didn't end up happening, however. Stein said that since the sludge came from other sewage plants and not the Site 11 facility, it didn't violate any state permitting rules.

Federal guidelines define "temporary storage" of sludge as less than two years, Stein's firm wrote in response to DEQ. "The biosolids in question were stored only for a few months earlier this year," says the response.

"I think ADEQ misunderstands ... they were not biosolids that were produced at the facility," Stein said. "There's a distinction between storing solids from this facility and storing solids from other facilities."

The Department of Environmental Quality's first visit to the sewage plant, however, indicated something different.

Gary Larsen, a representative of the utility, showed ADEQ officials where the sewage sludge had been temporarily stored on the site. However, there were no indications that sludge had been stored there, according to ADEQ documents.

ADEQ inspectors asked to be shown an area where sludge seemed to be scattered on the 640-acre property. They found a large trench where concrete and plastic debris as well as sewage sludge had been dumped, the report says.

Inspectors also found a 6-foot-deep pit where they were standing on biosolids that had already been buried with 2 inches to 3 inches of soil.

After Larsen told the inspectors that a utility backhoe was not in service, the inspectors dug six soil samples and could smell the strong odor of sewage.

The samples will be tested for a host of contaminants, although the department's report says they already know the material is sludge.

Inspectors returned to the sewage plant in early October. Larsen told inspectors that Johnson Utilities had retained an attorney and that he couldn't answer any questions.

Stein said that all of the sludge was moved from the facility after the surprise inspection. He said there was no health risk associated with storing the sludge at the site.