11/24/21
EPA Hosts Successful National Biosolids Stakeholder Meeting

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s biosolids program hosted a three-day virtual meeting for stakeholders nationwide, November 2nd through the 4th. The North East Biosolids & Residuals Association (NEBRA), along with the other regional biosolids associations, were included with state “co-regulators” and select utilities. This year’s meeting even included Canadian regulators for a total of about 240 registered attendees. There were federal, state, and local perspectives represented with lots of opportunity to interact/network.  EPA was assisted by Ross Strategic (Seattle, WA) in developing and managing the meeting for maximum benefit of the attendees.

Welcome and opening remarks were provided by Elizabeth (Betsy) Behl, Director of EPA’s Health & Ecological Criteria Division in the Office of Science & Technology (OST) and Radhika Fox, Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water. In her comments, Ms. Fox called this “a great moment for water” with big infrastructure investments coming.

Top EPA officials participating all repeatedly said that “biosolids are back” as a top priority for the Office of Water. Deborah Nagle, Director of the OST, acknowledged that EPA and others had disinvested in biosolids (the Part 503 regulations are considered “self-regulating”). She said EPA is now very much reengaged, with biosolids being a priority for increased efforts in technical, scientific, and regulatory activities related to biosolids. Ms. Nagel said we could all benefit from an increase in confidence in biosolids products, and she stressed the importance of the risk assessment work coming up.  Ms. Nagel said it was the goal of her office to understand the lifecycle of biosolids from sources to treatment to destruction of contaminants of emerging concern.  She suggested that changes to the Part 503 regulations to allow for resource recovery efforts may be on the horizon, but reiterated that we need to improve public confidence and trust in biosolids products being used as soil amendments. 

EPA’s Biosolids Program falls under the OST.  The EPA Biosolids Team includes Program Lead Liz Resek, David Tobias (Risk Assessment Lead), and Tess Richman and Lauren Questrell (ORISE Fellows).  They are charged with implementing EPA’s Biosolids Program Strategy for Fiscal Year 2020-2025 (see NEBRA website for a copy. In addition to their regular work and the risk assessments for PFOA and PFOS in biosolids, the team will be focused on expanded resource recovery and reuse options and continued engagement with co-regulators, biosolids generators, and other partners.

The three days of meetings were broken down into various panel and plenary sessions.

On Day 1, plenary sessions covered various aspects of the preliminary risk assessment approach for pollutants in biosolids, including the screening-level and refined risk assessment models for PFOA and PFOS, which will be presented to EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) for review in early 2022. There are several well-known names on the list of candidates for the SAB including several from this region (see NEBRA’s comments on EPA’s list of candidates). EPA plans to make the risk assessment model and tools available online in January when the SAB will begin its process.

Day 2 of the meeting kicked off with an excellent, thought-provoking panel on Environmental Justice (EJ) that generated a lot of dialogue amongst the meeting attendees. Catherine Flowers,  an advisor to the Administration, author of Waste, MacArthur Fellow, and a life-long EJ advocate has focused on ensuring adequate on-site wastewater treatment in poor rural communities, especially in Alabama. There are many communities in the U. S. where public health is affected by lack of basic sanitation systems (think hookworm infestations), a concerning situation for the richest country on the planet.  The second day also included a presentation on EPA’s new PFAS analytical Method 1633 which can be used for sampling biosolids.  It will still be about a year until the multi-lab validation and reviews are complete and the method is published. The day ended with a panel discussion with Federal and State Regulators in the Northwest U.S. on their complementary and coordinating biosolids programs.

NEBRA participated in a panel discussion titled “Biosolids for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation” to kick-off Day 3 of the meeting. The discussion, which included NEBRA’s Janine Burke-Wells, Ben Axt (Biosolids Forestry Project Manager for King County Wastewater), and Karri Ving (Business Strategy & Performance Manager with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission), generated quite a bit of conversation. The final session of the 3-day meeting was an update on key biosolids-related research activities. Chris Impellitteri, with EPA’s Office of Research and Development, highlighted numerous research gaps still needing to be addressed. 

The EPA Biosolids Team plans to continue these annual meetings with state co-regulators, especially given the strong positive reviews by all of this year’s participants. The EPA biosolids team will also continue their biosolids webinar series and other activities to continue to engage with all its biosolids partners.  The Team will make the recordings from  the panel discussions available on the EPA YouTube channel as part of its deliberate effort to build a library of resources for biosolids practitioners.