Court Rejects LA Petition to Send Sludge to Kern County, CA

Date: November 9, 2010

Source: News Room

Kern County, CA won a 4-year-old federal court battle with the City of Los Angeles over the county's right to ban land application of sewage sludge under a voter approved initiative. Los Angeles' petition aimed to invalidate the Kern County law known as Measure E, which was approved in 2006 to block shipments from Southern California of more than 450,000 tons a year of treated biosolids to a farm the city bought in 1999 for about $15 million. The city challenged Measure E on the grounds that it interfered with interstate commerce but last summer, the US Supreme Court declined to comment, letting stand a previous 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that the city and its allies, including the Orange County Sanitation District, lacked standing to sue under the commerce clause because the case involved transfers of a commodity from one portion of the state to another. The case was then sent back to Los Angeles U.S. District Court Judge Gary A. Feess who this week said Los Angeles' two remaining legal arguments -- that Kern County overstepped its police powers and violated the intentions of the California Integrated Waste Management Act -- do not belong in federal court.

Proponents of land application of biosolids argue that it constitutes beneficial reuse and makes excellent fertilizer. Critics say pathogens, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, household chemicals and varying contents of industrial waste streams are not completely eradicated by treatment, making sludge a threat to soil, groundwater and potentially to human health.

See also: "Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Kern County Sludge Case," (www.wasteinfo.com/news/wbj20100601F.htm).

See also: "LA and Others Press High Court to Overturn Ban on Biosolids Disposal," (www.wasteinfo.com/news/wbj20100330D.htm).

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