Sludge and Scandal
Here are two more stories on the Bronx sludge pelleting plant: And remember : Organic fertilizer does NOT mean it meets organic food production standards. Certified organic farms would lose their organic certification if they use use sludge or sludge products.
Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/
environment/20040212/7/869
Sludge and Scandal
by Sam Williams
12 Feb 2004
When Alvarado Sorin gives a tour of the New York Organic Fertilizer Company’s plant in Hunts Point, which processes what was originally the city's raw sewage into fertilizer for farmers, she is sure to warn people about the stink. Few know that stench better. A consultant for the company, and a member of the local community board who serves as the Bronx community liaison for the company, Sorin takes the call anytime the smells inside their plant get too much for local residents. Even with a full quarter mile between the plant and the nearest residence, the calls are frequent. But ask some local residents, and they will say something else at the plant stinks. "The smell is not just a nuisance," says Elena Conte of Sustainable South Bronx, a Hunts Point environmental group. "It's what's in the smell that concerns folks." Launched in 1993, the New York Organic Fertilizer Company is the largest facility of its type in the world. It processes up to 40 percent of the city's treated sewage sludge (up to 300 tons a day, according to the company), and has the capacity to handle the city's entire output, if needed. It is the flagship operation for Synagro Technologies Inc., a Houston-based company that bills itself as an "industry leader in biosolids, sludge, and residuals management." At first glance, the conversion of sewage into commercial fertilizer appears to be an environmental "win-win." Both the 1972 Clean Water Act and the 1988 Ocean Dumping Act put limitations on how cities dispose of the solid waste that passes down toilets, sinks, and gutters. Currently, the choice boils down to one of three options: incineration, landfill dumping, conversion to fertilizer. In its effort to encourage the third option, the Environmental Protection Agency "strongly supports" the efforts of industry groups such as the National Biosolid Partnership to educate cities about fertilizer recycling. That's where the trouble starts. Environmental groups, decrying the cozy relationship between the EPA and industry, have argued over the last two decades that the standards used to determine the safety of recycled sewage are dangerously lax. Of particular concern are so-called "Class B" fertilizers which undergo little more than a brief heating process to kill bacteria and can be spread in certain limited environments such as open pastureland. In 2002 Synagro settled out of court with the family of Shayne Conner, a New Hampshire man who died in his sleep a month after the spread of such fertilizer on a neighboring field. Although the settlement required that the family members state the lack of scientific evidence of the company's complicity, the EPA, in the wake of similar suits, announced last month that it would review its safety standards on 15 chemicals found in recycled sewage sludge and, according to the New York Times, look for pathogens. As a producer of Class A fertilizer -- a more tightly regulated product that can be mixed with other forms of fertilizer for general agricultural use -- the New York Organic Fertilizer Company's Bronx plant runs its sludge through an intense heating process designed to kill pathogens. Nevertheless, there are concerns over heavy metals, such as iron, lead, and zinc, a byproduct of both industrial waste and human waste. There was also concern when, last September, there was an explosion at the plant, caused by a volatile mixture of oxygen-rich air and swirling dust inside a silo. Although the explosion caused no injuries and did damage only to the silo's interior, the New York Post headline -- "Dung Flung" -- caused some apprehension halfway around the world, in Hawaii. There, the Honolulu City Council was considering a proposal by Synagro for a similar plant. That is undoubtedly why the company purchased tickets to fly Alvarado Sorin and Marta Rivera, chair of community board 2, to Hawaii, where they offered testimony favorable to the company. "I felt it was very important for your community to know that sometimes media can get a hold of a story and sensationalize it," said Rivera, according to a printed transcript of the December 3 testimony. "Unfortunately, people do not want to hear the truth and the truth is Synagro has been a responsible company." This little junket caused a different kind of explosion. The Daily News ran two stories in January playing up the quid-pro-quo element of the emerging scandal while also hinting at a possible investigation by the city's Conflict of Interest Board. The Conflict of Interest Board declines to say now whether or not a complaint has been filed. Rivera, meanwhile, resigned her position as chair of community board 2, though she still remains a member of the board. At a February 3 meeting to hire her successor, Alvarado Sorin, announced that she, too, was resigning as chair of the board's economic development committee but not from the board itself. She took responsibility for the decision to invite Rivera to Honolulu, which she said in retrospect was wrong, but blasted fellow board members for feeding the media the story. Speaking a day later in the conference room at the New York Organic Fertilizer Company facility, Sorin sounded more conciliatory, focusing on the facility's ongoing attempts to maintain an open dialogue with its harshest critics. "The community organizations are asking for more accountability from the managers and to have more input," she says. "My operations people have no problem sitting with the people if that's what they want." Marian Feinberg, health coordinator for the South Bronx Clean Air Coalition, has yet to be convinced. Earlier this month, she and other community members participated in a sitdown with managers following a tour of the plant. It wasn't the first time her organization and the plant had attempted a clear-the-air session, but, while the meeting was long -- "We were there long enough that we all had to go home and wash our coats and clothes," she says -- she does not believe that much was accomplished. More important than direct communication, Feinberg says, is the pressure finally coming from outside the borough. The demand for better, cleaner process is increasing, thanks to: the EPA standards review the personal injury lawsuits a pending state Department of Environmental Conservation review of the New York Organic Fertilizer Company's airborne emissions permit the growing number of grass roots groups willing to trade information and keep one another apprised of the latest developments "We will meet whatever guidelines the state and federal governments set for us," Sorin says. It is doubtful whether that pressure will be enough to result in zero odors and close-to-zero emissions, which is why plant opponents have created a slogan that has become their rallying cry -- "clean it up or shut it down."
http://www.gothamgazette.com/print/869
//////////////////////////////////// and a pre-edited version: Sludge and Scandal By Sam Williams [Note: This is a pre-edited version of a story which appeared in the Jan. 14 edition of The Gotham Gazette under the headline "Sludge and Scandal." The final, edited version is available on the Gotham Gazette site.] A New Yorker can cope with bad odors. From the piquant stench of a urine-soaked stairwell to the musky scent of a mid-summer subway car, one quickly learns to block out the minor nuisances and to move past the major ones. The smell that emanates from the interior of the New York Organic Fertilzer Company's sludge recycling plant in Hunts Point, on the other hand, is a different story entirely. "Pardon me if I walk a little fast," says plant tour guide Lisa Alvarado Sorin, striding briskly down a central catwalk after opening the door. "But I think you'll thank me for it later." She's right. Within three steps, the smell of treated sewage has become an engulfing miasma, burrowing its way into sinuses, hair, and clothes. As we pass piles of fresh, "dewatered" sewage sludge rolling down an adjacent conveyor belt -- sludge that will soon be recycled into EPA-approved fertilizer pellets for farms and orchards -- it's hard not to imagine the air in between us as a transparent liquid of pure stench. Few know that stench better than Alvarado Sorin. A consultant who serves as the Bronx community liaison for New York Organic Fertilizer and its parent company, Synagro Technologies Inc., it's her job to take the call anytime the smells inside their plant find their way into the irritated nostrils of local residents. As Alvarado Sorin will be the first to admit, even with a full quarter mile between her plant and the nearest apartment or house, the calls are frequent. "You can't blame them," she says about the complainers "Between the smokestack, the [pellet] silos and the smell, (the plant) does tend to draw attention on itself." Launched in 1993, the New York Organic Fertilizer Company is the largest facility of its type in the world. It processes up to 40 percent of the city's treated sewage sludge -- up to 300 tons a day according to the company -- and has the capacity to handle the city's entire output, if needed. It is the flagship operation for the Houston-based Synagro, a company that bills itself as an "industry leader in biosolids, sludge, and residuals management." At first glance, the conversion of sewage into commercial fertilizer appears to be an environmental "win-win." Both the 1972 Clean Water Act and the 1988 Ocean Dumping Act put limitations on how cities dispose o the soild waste passes down toilets, sinks, and gutters. Currently, the choice boils down to three options: incineration, landfill dumping, or conversion to fertilizer for alternate use. In its effort to encourage the third option, the Environmental Protection Agency "strongly supports" the efforts of industry groups such as the National Biosolid Partnership to educate cities about fertilizer recycling. That's where the trouble starts. Environmental groups, decrying the cozy relationship between the EPA and the sewage recycling industry, have argued over the last two decades that the standards used to determine the safety of recycled sewage are dangerously lax. Of particular concern are so-called "Class B" fertilizers which undergo little more than a briefy heating process to kill bacteria and can be spread in certain limited environments such as open pastureland. In 2002 Synagro settled out of court with the family of Shayne Conner, a New Hampshire man who died in his sleep a month after the spread of a subsidiary's Class B fertilizer on a neighboring field. Although the settlement required that the family members state the lack of scientific evidence of the company's complicity, the EPA, in the wake of similar suits, announced January that it would review its safety standards on 15 chemicals found in recycled sewage sludge and, according to a Jan. 3 New York Times report, look for pathogens as well. For the New York Organic Fertilizer Co., such stories provide background to what has mainly been a local drama involving obnoxious smells and airborne pollutants coming out of the plant. As a producer of Class A fertilizer -- a more tightly regulated product that can be mixed with other forms of fertilizer for general agricultural use -- the plant runs its sludge through an intense heating process designed to kill pathogens. Still, concerns over heavy metals such as iron, lead, and zinc, a byproduct of both industrial and concentrated human waste, keep the facility's activities well-linked to Synagro's distant battles with environmental groups. "The smell is not just a nuisance," says Elena Conte, solid waste and energy coordinator for Sustainable South Bronx, a Hunts Point environmental group. "It's what's in the smell that concerns folks." If Alvarado Sorin and her parent company needed any proof of the growing coordination between city and outside opponents, they got it late December. That's when the local news media seized on the story that she and Bronx Community Board 2 chairwoman Marta Rivera had offered testimony favor to Synagro at a zoning board meeting of the Honolulu City Council. Flying to Hawai'i on tickets purchased by Synagro, the two played down the local media coverage of a September explosion in one of the New York Organic Fertilizer Company's storage silos. "I felt it was very important for your community to know that sometimes media can get a hold of a story and sensationalize it," said Rivera, according to a printed transcript of the Dec. 3 testimony. "Unfortunately, people do not want to hear the truth and the truth is Synagro has been a responsible company." Conte, who says her group had been in communication with Honolulu city council staffmembers, says word of the testimony quickly filtered back. "They informed us that two women of color from the South Bronx had testified in defense of [New York Organic Fertilizer Co.]," says Conte. "Our interest was immediately piqued." So too was the interest of the Daily News, which ran two stories in January playing up the quid-pro-quo element of the emerging scandal while also hinting at a possible investigation by the city's Conflict of Interest Board. The Conflict of Interest Board declines to say whether or not a complaint has been filed. Rivera, meanwhile, has since resigned her position as board chairperson while still remaining a member of the board. At a Feb. 3 meeting to hire her successor, Alvarado Sorin, announced that she, too, was resigning as chair of the board's economic development committee but not from the board itself. In her resignation speech Alvarado Sorin blasted fellow board members whom she accused of feeding the media coverage in the hopes of prompting just such a shakeup. Taking credit for the decision to invite Rivera to Honolulu, she labeled decision "wrong" in retrospect but limited her apologies to Rivera only. "I'm doing this out loyalty to Marta," she said, summing up the resignation. Speaking a day later in the conference room at the New York Organic Fertilizer Company facility, Alvarado Sorin offered a more conciliatory tone. Instead of dwelling on the political fallout of the Honolulu hearing, she focused on the facility's ongoing attempts to maintain an open dialogue with its harshest critics. "The community organizations are asking for more accountability from the managers and to have more input," she says. "My operations people have no problem sitting with the people if that's what they want." Marian Feinberg, health coordinator for the South Bronx Clean Air Coalition, has yet to be convinced. On Feb. 2, the day before the community board hearing, she and other community members participated in a sitdown with managers following a tour of the plant. The meeting was long. "We were there long enough that we all had to go home and wash our coats and clothes," she says. Still, says Feinberg, it wasn't the first time her organization and the plant had attempted a clear-the-air session. "I don't think any new ground got broken, but that's my opinion," Feinberg says More important than direct communication, Feinberg says, is the pressure finally coming from outside the borough. Between the EPA standards review, the personal injury lawsuits, a pending state Department of Environmental Conservation review of the New York Organic Fertilizer Company's airborne emissions permit, and -- most importantly -- the growing number of grass roots groups willing to trade information and keep one another apprised of the latest developments, the demand for better, cleaner, sewage recycling is becoming an uproar. "We will meet whatever guidelines the state and federal governments set for us," says Alvarado Sorin. Whether that pressure will be enough to result in zero odors and close-to-zero emissions is doubtful, however. Faced with the choice of "clean it up or shut it down" -- a popular slogan among plant opponents -- Alvarado Sorin, a Bronx resident, is stoic. "If the community wants to better itself, that's to be expected," she says. "We have a long, long way to go, I know, but I think people should be applauding themselves already for how far we've come in the last 10 years."
http://vader.inow.com/~sam/sludge.html
Here are two more stories on the Bronx sludge pelleting plant: And remember : Organic fertilizer does NOT mean it meets organic food production standards. Certified organic farms would lose their organic certification if they use use sludge or sludge products.
Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/
environment/20040212/7/869
Sludge and Scandal
by Sam Williams
12 Feb 2004
When Alvarado Sorin gives a tour of the New York Organic Fertilizer Company’s plant in Hunts Point, which processes what was originally the city's raw sewage into fertilizer for farmers, she is sure to warn people about the stink. Few know that stench better. A consultant for the company, and a member of the local community board who serves as the Bronx community liaison for the company, Sorin takes the call anytime the smells inside their plant get too much for local residents. Even with a full quarter mile between the plant and the nearest residence, the calls are frequent. But ask some local residents, and they will say something else at the plant stinks. "The smell is not just a nuisance," says Elena Conte of Sustainable South Bronx, a Hunts Point environmental group. "It's what's in the smell that concerns folks." Launched in 1993, the New York Organic Fertilizer Company is the largest facility of its type in the world. It processes up to 40 percent of the city's treated sewage sludge (up to 300 tons a day, according to the company), and has the capacity to handle the city's entire output, if needed. It is the flagship operation for Synagro Technologies Inc., a Houston-based company that bills itself as an "industry leader in biosolids, sludge, and residuals management." At first glance, the conversion of sewage into commercial fertilizer appears to be an environmental "win-win." Both the 1972 Clean Water Act and the 1988 Ocean Dumping Act put limitations on how cities dispose of the solid waste that passes down toilets, sinks, and gutters. Currently, the choice boils down to one of three options: incineration, landfill dumping, conversion to fertilizer. In its effort to encourage the third option, the Environmental Protection Agency "strongly supports" the efforts of industry groups such as the National Biosolid Partnership to educate cities about fertilizer recycling. That's where the trouble starts. Environmental groups, decrying the cozy relationship between the EPA and industry, have argued over the last two decades that the standards used to determine the safety of recycled sewage are dangerously lax. Of particular concern are so-called "Class B" fertilizers which undergo little more than a brief heating process to kill bacteria and can be spread in certain limited environments such as open pastureland. In 2002 Synagro settled out of court with the family of Shayne Conner, a New Hampshire man who died in his sleep a month after the spread of such fertilizer on a neighboring field. Although the settlement required that the family members state the lack of scientific evidence of the company's complicity, the EPA, in the wake of similar suits, announced last month that it would review its safety standards on 15 chemicals found in recycled sewage sludge and, according to the New York Times, look for pathogens. As a producer of Class A fertilizer -- a more tightly regulated product that can be mixed with other forms of fertilizer for general agricultural use -- the New York Organic Fertilizer Company's Bronx plant runs its sludge through an intense heating process designed to kill pathogens. Nevertheless, there are concerns over heavy metals, such as iron, lead, and zinc, a byproduct of both industrial waste and human waste. There was also concern when, last September, there was an explosion at the plant, caused by a volatile mixture of oxygen-rich air and swirling dust inside a silo. Although the explosion caused no injuries and did damage only to the silo's interior, the New York Post headline -- "Dung Flung" -- caused some apprehension halfway around the world, in Hawaii. There, the Honolulu City Council was considering a proposal by Synagro for a similar plant. That is undoubtedly why the company purchased tickets to fly Alvarado Sorin and Marta Rivera, chair of community board 2, to Hawaii, where they offered testimony favorable to the company. "I felt it was very important for your community to know that sometimes media can get a hold of a story and sensationalize it," said Rivera, according to a printed transcript of the December 3 testimony. "Unfortunately, people do not want to hear the truth and the truth is Synagro has been a responsible company." This little junket caused a different kind of explosion. The Daily News ran two stories in January playing up the quid-pro-quo element of the emerging scandal while also hinting at a possible investigation by the city's Conflict of Interest Board. The Conflict of Interest Board declines to say now whether or not a complaint has been filed. Rivera, meanwhile, resigned her position as chair of community board 2, though she still remains a member of the board. At a February 3 meeting to hire her successor, Alvarado Sorin, announced that she, too, was resigning as chair of the board's economic development committee but not from the board itself. She took responsibility for the decision to invite Rivera to Honolulu, which she said in retrospect was wrong, but blasted fellow board members for feeding the media the story. Speaking a day later in the conference room at the New York Organic Fertilizer Company facility, Sorin sounded more conciliatory, focusing on the facility's ongoing attempts to maintain an open dialogue with its harshest critics. "The community organizations are asking for more accountability from the managers and to have more input," she says. "My operations people have no problem sitting with the people if that's what they want." Marian Feinberg, health coordinator for the South Bronx Clean Air Coalition, has yet to be convinced. Earlier this month, she and other community members participated in a sitdown with managers following a tour of the plant. It wasn't the first time her organization and the plant had attempted a clear-the-air session, but, while the meeting was long -- "We were there long enough that we all had to go home and wash our coats and clothes," she says -- she does not believe that much was accomplished. More important than direct communication, Feinberg says, is the pressure finally coming from outside the borough. The demand for better, cleaner process is increasing, thanks to: the EPA standards review the personal injury lawsuits a pending state Department of Environmental Conservation review of the New York Organic Fertilizer Company's airborne emissions permit the growing number of grass roots groups willing to trade information and keep one another apprised of the latest developments "We will meet whatever guidelines the state and federal governments set for us," Sorin says. It is doubtful whether that pressure will be enough to result in zero odors and close-to-zero emissions, which is why plant opponents have created a slogan that has become their rallying cry -- "clean it up or shut it down."
http://www.gothamgazette.com/print/869
//////////////////////////////////// and a pre-edited version: Sludge and Scandal By Sam Williams [Note: This is a pre-edited version of a story which appeared in the Jan. 14 edition of The Gotham Gazette under the headline "Sludge and Scandal." The final, edited version is available on the Gotham Gazette site.] A New Yorker can cope with bad odors. From the piquant stench of a urine-soaked stairwell to the musky scent of a mid-summer subway car, one quickly learns to block out the minor nuisances and to move past the major ones. The smell that emanates from the interior of the New York Organic Fertilzer Company's sludge recycling plant in Hunts Point, on the other hand, is a different story entirely. "Pardon me if I walk a little fast," says plant tour guide Lisa Alvarado Sorin, striding briskly down a central catwalk after opening the door. "But I think you'll thank me for it later." She's right. Within three steps, the smell of treated sewage has become an engulfing miasma, burrowing its way into sinuses, hair, and clothes. As we pass piles of fresh, "dewatered" sewage sludge rolling down an adjacent conveyor belt -- sludge that will soon be recycled into EPA-approved fertilizer pellets for farms and orchards -- it's hard not to imagine the air in between us as a transparent liquid of pure stench. Few know that stench better than Alvarado Sorin. A consultant who serves as the Bronx community liaison for New York Organic Fertilizer and its parent company, Synagro Technologies Inc., it's her job to take the call anytime the smells inside their plant find their way into the irritated nostrils of local residents. As Alvarado Sorin will be the first to admit, even with a full quarter mile between her plant and the nearest apartment or house, the calls are frequent. "You can't blame them," she says about the complainers "Between the smokestack, the [pellet] silos and the smell, (the plant) does tend to draw attention on itself." Launched in 1993, the New York Organic Fertilizer Company is the largest facility of its type in the world. It processes up to 40 percent of the city's treated sewage sludge -- up to 300 tons a day according to the company -- and has the capacity to handle the city's entire output, if needed. It is the flagship operation for the Houston-based Synagro, a company that bills itself as an "industry leader in biosolids, sludge, and residuals management." At first glance, the conversion of sewage into commercial fertilizer appears to be an environmental "win-win." Both the 1972 Clean Water Act and the 1988 Ocean Dumping Act put limitations on how cities dispose o the soild waste passes down toilets, sinks, and gutters. Currently, the choice boils down to three options: incineration, landfill dumping, or conversion to fertilizer for alternate use. In its effort to encourage the third option, the Environmental Protection Agency "strongly supports" the efforts of industry groups such as the National Biosolid Partnership to educate cities about fertilizer recycling. That's where the trouble starts. Environmental groups, decrying the cozy relationship between the EPA and the sewage recycling industry, have argued over the last two decades that the standards used to determine the safety of recycled sewage are dangerously lax. Of particular concern are so-called "Class B" fertilizers which undergo little more than a briefy heating process to kill bacteria and can be spread in certain limited environments such as open pastureland. In 2002 Synagro settled out of court with the family of Shayne Conner, a New Hampshire man who died in his sleep a month after the spread of a subsidiary's Class B fertilizer on a neighboring field. Although the settlement required that the family members state the lack of scientific evidence of the company's complicity, the EPA, in the wake of similar suits, announced January that it would review its safety standards on 15 chemicals found in recycled sewage sludge and, according to a Jan. 3 New York Times report, look for pathogens as well. For the New York Organic Fertilizer Co., such stories provide background to what has mainly been a local drama involving obnoxious smells and airborne pollutants coming out of the plant. As a producer of Class A fertilizer -- a more tightly regulated product that can be mixed with other forms of fertilizer for general agricultural use -- the plant runs its sludge through an intense heating process designed to kill pathogens. Still, concerns over heavy metals such as iron, lead, and zinc, a byproduct of both industrial and concentrated human waste, keep the facility's activities well-linked to Synagro's distant battles with environmental groups. "The smell is not just a nuisance," says Elena Conte, solid waste and energy coordinator for Sustainable South Bronx, a Hunts Point environmental group. "It's what's in the smell that concerns folks." If Alvarado Sorin and her parent company needed any proof of the growing coordination between city and outside opponents, they got it late December. That's when the local news media seized on the story that she and Bronx Community Board 2 chairwoman Marta Rivera had offered testimony favor to Synagro at a zoning board meeting of the Honolulu City Council. Flying to Hawai'i on tickets purchased by Synagro, the two played down the local media coverage of a September explosion in one of the New York Organic Fertilizer Company's storage silos. "I felt it was very important for your community to know that sometimes media can get a hold of a story and sensationalize it," said Rivera, according to a printed transcript of the Dec. 3 testimony. "Unfortunately, people do not want to hear the truth and the truth is Synagro has been a responsible company." Conte, who says her group had been in communication with Honolulu city council staffmembers, says word of the testimony quickly filtered back. "They informed us that two women of color from the South Bronx had testified in defense of [New York Organic Fertilizer Co.]," says Conte. "Our interest was immediately piqued." So too was the interest of the Daily News, which ran two stories in January playing up the quid-pro-quo element of the emerging scandal while also hinting at a possible investigation by the city's Conflict of Interest Board. The Conflict of Interest Board declines to say whether or not a complaint has been filed. Rivera, meanwhile, has since resigned her position as board chairperson while still remaining a member of the board. At a Feb. 3 meeting to hire her successor, Alvarado Sorin, announced that she, too, was resigning as chair of the board's economic development committee but not from the board itself. In her resignation speech Alvarado Sorin blasted fellow board members whom she accused of feeding the media coverage in the hopes of prompting just such a shakeup. Taking credit for the decision to invite Rivera to Honolulu, she labeled decision "wrong" in retrospect but limited her apologies to Rivera only. "I'm doing this out loyalty to Marta," she said, summing up the resignation. Speaking a day later in the conference room at the New York Organic Fertilizer Company facility, Alvarado Sorin offered a more conciliatory tone. Instead of dwelling on the political fallout of the Honolulu hearing, she focused on the facility's ongoing attempts to maintain an open dialogue with its harshest critics. "The community organizations are asking for more accountability from the managers and to have more input," she says. "My operations people have no problem sitting with the people if that's what they want." Marian Feinberg, health coordinator for the South Bronx Clean Air Coalition, has yet to be convinced. On Feb. 2, the day before the community board hearing, she and other community members participated in a sitdown with managers following a tour of the plant. The meeting was long. "We were there long enough that we all had to go home and wash our coats and clothes," she says. Still, says Feinberg, it wasn't the first time her organization and the plant had attempted a clear-the-air session. "I don't think any new ground got broken, but that's my opinion," Feinberg says More important than direct communication, Feinberg says, is the pressure finally coming from outside the borough. Between the EPA standards review, the personal injury lawsuits, a pending state Department of Environmental Conservation review of the New York Organic Fertilizer Company's airborne emissions permit, and -- most importantly -- the growing number of grass roots groups willing to trade information and keep one another apprised of the latest developments, the demand for better, cleaner, sewage recycling is becoming an uproar. "We will meet whatever guidelines the state and federal governments set for us," says Alvarado Sorin. Whether that pressure will be enough to result in zero odors and close-to-zero emissions is doubtful, however. Faced with the choice of "clean it up or shut it down" -- a popular slogan among plant opponents -- Alvarado Sorin, a Bronx resident, is stoic. "If the community wants to better itself, that's to be expected," she says. "We have a long, long way to go, I know, but I think people should be applauding themselves already for how far we've come in the last 10 years."
http://vader.inow.com/~sam/sludge.html
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