The U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) are currently in a legal dispute about sewage sludge used in farm fertilizer. According to PEER, the Clean Water Act (CWA) requires that the EPA must regulate these contaminants, but the EPA is arguing that the CWA doesn’t apply to land.
“They [farmers] rely on statements about the safety of the products they put on their land,” said Laura Dumais, PEER staff counsel, in an interview with Waste 360. “If EPA is not telling them it is harmful and in fact promoting sewage sludge as potentially helpful to put on land, this is a real problem.”