Photo by Nick Fonda
Louis Robert, Herman Herbers, Martin Lessard, and Pascal Goux spoke at a press conference in Cleveland Monday morning on a government proposal to regulate the use of sludge on agricultural land.

By Nick Fonda

Local Journalism Initiative

Waste—human waste—is a problem. 

The problem was addressed at a Monday morning press conference at the Municipality of Cleveland Town Hall when the director general, Martin Lessard, made public the municipality’s recommendations to the provincial government which is preparing legislation to regulate the storing and spreading of sewage sludge, also referred to as biosolids and as fertilizing residual material (FRM).

In addition to Martin Lessard, three other people spoke:  Herman Herbers, mayor of Cleveland, Pascal Goux, a retired engineer and Cleveland resident, and Louis Robert, a retired agronomist and author of Pour le bien de la terre, a book that outlines the harm being done to agricultural land by the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides.

All towns and cities on the St. Francis River now have water filtration plants.  Municipal waste water from the town’s sewer system flows to the filtration plant.  There the water is aerated in ponds where the solids sink to the bottom and the water—now clean—is pumped back into the river.

Over time, the sediment in the settling ponds accumulates.  Periodically, the pond is drained and the sediment dries into sludge which is transported to farms where it is spread over the fields like fertilizer.

Human waste is not very different to the waste produced by livestock, and it has been used the same way since the advent of agriculture.

More recently, that simple, natural cycle has become more complicated.  As well as waste from residential neighbourhoods, filtration plants also have waste from commercial and industrial concerns.  Inevitably, the process of fabricating household or other goods creates waste.  Often, to varying degrees, the waste is toxic.

On a number of occasions, including in Cleveland in 2020, the dumping of toxic waste on agricultural land has resulted in people being poisoned, livestock stricken, and wells contaminated. 

So far, the Quebec government has had guidelines to try to control where municipal and industrial sludge is spread.  To prepare laws, rather than just guidelines, to regulate the sludge market, the government released a management code for fertilizing residual matter and gave interested parties a relatively small window of time to offer feedback and input into the drafting of the legislation.

Martin Lessard headed a group that prepared a detailed commentary focussed on the environmental impact of the management code, a text that is 91 pages long and was published in the Gazette Officielle du Québec on July 24, 2024.

High on the list of concerns were the timing and time-line set out by the government’s consultation process.  Those wishing to suggest changes had 45 days to make their proposals.  Worse, the government issued their request at a time when many are on vacation, and likely to miss the government’s announcement.

The proposed changes presented by Cleveland ran to 14 legal-sized pages.  What follows are selected highlights.

There is already considerable literature from the United States on the link between public health and the indiscriminate spreading of sludge.  Cleveland proposes a moratorium on the use of sludge on agricultural land until there are more conclusive studies available and until public hearings by the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environment (BAPE) or similar public hearings can be held.

The government management code effectively allows sludge merchants to ship or store their product without prior permission.  Cleveland’s proposal—if a moratorium is not imposed—is to adopt strict controls and to ensure that if there are problems that there be rapid follow-up.

Chemical analysis of the sludge at the point of source should be recorded by the municipality or industry producing it, however Cleveland would like those records to be publicly available to ensure full transparency.

Depending on its source, sludge contains a range of concentrations of pathogens—bacteria, viruses, moulds, and parasites.  These concentrations should be minimal in the case of the sludge spread on fields.  There should be no mixtures of biosolids to create misleading average readings.

The government paper is unclear as to certain roles.  Cleveland feels that the sludge merchant should not be the one to carry out the chemical analysis of the sludge.

While owners of woodlots have to authorize the spreading of sludge on their land, this is not the case for owners of agricultural land.  Cleveland would like to see a system whereby landowners have to give their approval to the spreading of sludge, even if they themselves are not the ones exploiting the land in question.

Not only humans, but livestock as well should be protected from the odours of stockpiled sludge.  There should be a minimum of 165 meters between a pile of sludge and any buildings, a distance recommended in 2016 by Quebec Public Health.  In addition to being unpleasant, odours also indicate that bioaerosol dispersal is occurring:  potentially noxious agents are being spread through the air.

The management code would permit sludge to be dumped 60 meters away from any waterway or 100 meters from a well.  Cleveland’s bylaws already stipulate these distances as 150 meters.  Furthermore, the municipality’s bylaws state that, in the case of a slope of more than 3 per cent, sludge should be piled more than 200 meters from the well or waterway.

Agronomists should be bound by their code of ethics and not be put into positions where they face a conflict of interest.  An agronomist being paid by a promoter selling sludge should not simultaneously be advising farmers on the use of FRMs.  Agronomists should similarly not be acting contrary to the public good.

Cleveland suggests that when sludge is to be delivered to a rural property, neighbouring residents should be informed 10 days prior, not seven days as proposed by the code.  This allows property owners time to test their water before the sludge is delivered.  If water tested after a delivery of sludge proves to be contaminated, the source of contamination won’t be in dispute.

The new code wants to give municipalities two days notice of sludge deliveries.  Cleveland feels that the notice given should be 30 days to allow the municipality to properly manage its territory.

The government proposes that sludge merchants be allowed to deliver a quantity of less than 2,000 metric tons of certain classes of biosolids without notifying the municipality beforehand.   Cleveland feels that municipalities should always be informed about sludge being delivered to their territory, regardless how small the quantity is or its category.  Transparency is essential to the proper functioning of the municipality.

The management code would change the categories of FRMs that have to be accompanied by a small sign indicating what kind of sludge has been dumped on an agricultural field.  Cleveland would want to maintain the practice of installing a sign with relevant information.  The cost of this is minimal and it provides transparency.

This summary is superficial at best.  Sludge is as complicated as it is malodourous.  For one thing, it is not uniform but, depending on where it comes from, will have a chemical composition that places it in one of dozens of different categories—C2, P1, O3, E2, I1 etc.—which defy simple explanations.  As our technologies grow more sophisticated, the number of potential new contaminants also grows.  The newest sludge category (listed under “I”) includes what are called forever chemicals that take a very long time to break down.  While there are dozens, if not hundreds, of chemicals in this category, the government is only asking that testing be carried out for a few of them.

Sadly, what does seem apparent is that the government management code is industry-friendly.  It gives sludge merchants loopholes that facilitate the disposal of biosolids and that leaves municipalities and rural property owners ill-informed and vulnerable to toxic poisons that should be incinerated at high temperature rather than spread on green pastures.

Waste—human and industrial—is a problem most of us would just as soon leave unmentioned.  Yet, the longer it goes ignored, the more serious the consequences we face.

As Martin Lessard pointed out, we don’t want to wake up in 20 years time and realize that this is the moment when we should have acted to protect our environment, and that includes our agricultural lands.