A Watertown Department of Public Works truck is outfitted to drive sludge to the storage lot at the wastewater treatment plant in 2017. The sludge is sent up the conveyor system from the plant, at right, and into the bed of the truck. (Provided photo — Johnson Newspapers)

A product used on farms across New York, produced at a facility in Chateaugay, was nearly banned for use on agricultural land in the state legislature this year.

Known to some as biosolids and others as sewage sludge, the product comes primarily from human waste, hauled out from sewage treatment plants. It’s then processed by companies like Casella, a waste management company that owns a plant in Chateaugay, in northern Franklin County. Opponents of the practice warn the material shows signs of being unsafe, carrying heavy metals, toxic chemicals and other worrying compounds they say have no business near farmland.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency permits the use of sewage sludge on both agricultural and nonagricultural land, and has two classifications for their use. Class B biosolids are treated in a way unlikely to kill all pathogens in the sludge, and these can’t be used on land with potential for human exposure, which must be restricted to prevent grazing animals or humans from entering it.

Crops on this land are also subject to harvest restrictions requiring farmers to wait longer to collect their crops if they’ve used Class B products.

Class A biosolids are more processed, subject to fewer restrictions, allowing for their use on areas like parks or golf courses with significant human and animal traffic. There are also “A-EQ” solids which are Class A materials so well-sanitized that they can be sold directly from the treatment plant or retail shops to home users.

At the Casella Organics plant on Smith Road, situated among acres of farmland, farmers and professional land managers can buy Class A or B materials. They can also rent the necessary spreading equipment, and get professional soil management services. Truckloads of biosolids come in from a number of sources including towns in St. Lawrence County, Saratoga County, Long Island, Vermont, Massachusetts and nearby communities in Canada.

To create their Class A products, a special machine known as a bioset processor mixes the dewatered biosolids — dried human waste — with quicklime and sulfamic acid. This causes a chemical reaction that produces heat, enough to pasteurize the waste.

The result is something Casella calls Fertilimer, a chemically sanitized, nutrient-rich mixture that also includes lime, which neutralizes acidic soil and can improve conditions for plants to grow. It is sold to farmers under the Casella Organics Earthlife brand. Casella advertising pamphlets show the product contains nitrogen, phosphoric acid, potash, magnesian and lime. Fertilimer from Casella is a Class A product.

The bill considered in New York this year, which passed in the state Senate and very nearly came to a vote in the Assembly where it was likely to pass, would have started a statewide five-year moratorium on the spreading of biosolids in any category.

Originally, the Senate-considered version would have required testing for PFAS, a group of long-lasting chemicals tied to an array of diseases, established a rescue fund to support farmers whose land has been contaminated, and directed the establishment of a state task force to investigate if biosolids are safe to use and how best to dispose of sewage sludge in a way most protective of community health.

Negotiations gradually stripped that bill down to just a five-year moratorium, but even that didn’t come to law this year, as Assembly deadlines kept the bill from coming to a vote before session ended earlier this month. That disappointed environmental groups, who saw the bill come within hours of passing before their hopes were dashed.

Wayne Miller, member of the Atlantic Chapter of the Sierra Club’s executive committee who advocates for environmental policies in New York, said in an interview that he has serious concerns over the presence of chemicals like PFAS and heavy metals like mercury and lead, with ongoing testing showing that these materials are present in biosolids coming out of most American wastewater management systems.

“These don’t get touched by composting, and while processors are required to measure and report on some of these, there are no real standards,” he said.

PFAS are of special concern because they have spread widely through land and water in the United States, and contamination has impacted hundreds of communities nationwide. On Fort Drum, a half-dozen water wells were capped and disconnected after PFAS were found in the water on post, attributed to fire-fighting foam used at Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield.

In Hoosick Falls, Rensselaer County, the state Department of Environmental Conservation discovered the first major PFAS contamination in the state in the village’s municipal water system, linked to a still-operating plastic production facility in the village.

Miller pointed to nearby states that have banned biosolid spreading, like Maine, where officials are now trying to work out ways to remediate severe PFAS contamination on dozens of farms statewide.

Miller, by obtaining regular reports Casella is required to send to the state and federal governments, was able to procure a list of farms that the Chateaugay facility sold Fertilimer to. The list does not include farm names, only the town the farms are based in. The list shows that a number of Franklin, Clinton and St. Lawrence County farms bought the product in 2019, all to grow corn, hay and small grains.

Miller said in his experience, dairy farms and especially large animal feeding operations do not buy biosolid products in significant numbers, but smaller family farms focused on crops do use biosolid products.

He said he is very disappointed that the moratorium bill did not pass this year — after advocates and supportive lawmakers pushed it through the state Senate to passage and all the way through the Assembly committee process.

“I feel like we got patted on the head and sent away, feeling like we almost made it to the finish line, but in fact we got our hat handed to us and sent away,” he said.

Miller said that work will be replicated again next year, when a coalition of environmental groups will return to the capital and push the bill again. He said there’s a groundswell of local support for bans on biosolid spreading, with both Schoharie and Albany counties passing their own bans, and efforts in towns in other upstate counties including Steuben and Clinton. “We will be redoubling our efforts,” Miller said. “This is a ticking time bomb.”