Decatur Utilities’ latest plan to dispose of contaminated sludge requires evaporation of contaminated runoff at the Morgan County landfill.

But Jane Hoolihan, vice president for research at Environmental Working Group, said the evaporation will increase contamination levels of any downwind residents.

The Morgan County landfill is south of Alabama 20 in Trinity, near residential areas.

The sludge accumulates at a rate of 42 tons per day at DU’s wastewater treatment plant and contains high levels of perfluorinated chemicals produced by area industries.

This week, the Morgan County Area Landfill will again begin accepting DU sludge even though the sludge contains the chemicals.

Landfill Director Rickey Terry previously rejected the sludge because DU said it could not accept leachate (runoff) from the landfill, which also contained high levels of the chemicals.

“They’ve said they’ll have about four truckloads a day, but there isn’t any limit,” Terry said Monday.

Soil contamination

What to do with the sludge has been a question since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommended an end to spreading the sludge as fertilizer on area farms, mostly in Lawrence County. That followed EPA tests, released in November, that found high concentrations of the chemicals in the soil.

Later tests revealed high levels in two drinking wells and several grazing ponds.

A recent decision by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management that allows the landfill to recirculate leachate rather than discharge it into a wastewater treatment plant was the main reason for Terry’s decision to allow the sludge back into the landfill.

“We’re getting more evaporation,” Terry said. “Also, we have a big aerator running up in one of our lagoons that’s spraying it up in the air and letting the evaporation take even more water out of here.”

Accumulation

As air temperature drops and rain increases, the leachate accumulation will return.

“When winter gets here again,” Terry said, “we’ll have a treatment plan in place to deal with it.”

Terry said the landfill is seeking a Significant Industrial Discharge Permit from ADEM that would permit it to discharge leachate into DU’s wastewater treatment plant.

He said the planned ADEM application, which the landfill has not yet filed, would seek a permit that does not require any landfill effort to reduce the perfluorinated chemicals in the leachate.

“Unless ADEM has an issue with it, we could probably take our leachate back to DU, as is, now,” Terry said.

Despite the planned permit request, Terry said, he is looking at carbon filtration systems that could remove the chemicals from the leachate before it enters the wastewater treatment plant.

Because the DU treatment plant does not have a carbon filtration system, all perfluorinated chemicals that enter it leave either in the 42 tons of sludge that accumulate daily or flow into the Tennessee River at the discharge point, near Ingalls Harbor.

Decatur Utilities Plants and Engineering Manager Tom Cleveland said the utility would send most sludge to the Morgan County landfill but would continue to use a Hillsboro landfill that has been its sole disposal site since January, when it last shipped sludge to the Morgan County landfill.

“We’d rather keep it local than have to transport it,” Cleveland said.

For 12 years, DU has disposed of its sludge almost entirely by applying it to area farms.

At least three local companies use or have used the chemicals, which do not exist naturally and do not degrade in the environment: 3M Co., Daikin America and Toray Fluorofibers.

Studies show PFOA and PFOS accumulate for long time periods — up to four years in humans — and cause cancer, infertility, birth defects and other maladies in animals. Studies on the chemicals’ impact on humans are less conclusive, but a draft EPA report labeled them likely carcinogens.