environmental Strategist, between the lines: My question is not about the penalty imposed on the city of Farmington but the resulting liability that can impact the farmers where the sludge was applied. I hope the farmers or their insurance agents made sure the City of Farmington had pollution insurance to protect the farmers from this environmental liability.
City of Farmington, Mo., Agrees to Civil Penalty
Penalty will settle Clean Water Act and NPDES violations
March 14, 2011
The city of Farmington, Mo., agreed to pay a $61,566 civil penalty to the U.S. to settle violations of its wastewater discharge permits and the Clean Water Act related to nickel levels in sewage sludge that was applied to farms in four area counties, and ammonia levels in wastewater discharged from the city’s treatment plants.
During a 2009 EPA inspection of Farmington’s East and West Wastewater Treatment Plants, a review of records noted that on 266 occasions between October 2006 and November 2008, sewage sludge from those facilities that was applied to agricultural land contained levels of nickel ranging from 59% to 791% above the regulatory ceiling level of 420 mg per kg, as specified by the Clean Water Act.
All told, the 266 sludge applications occurred at 29 different properties in Madison, Perry, St. Francois and St. Genevieve counties, involving more than 660 acres of agricultural land. Owners of properties that received the sludge were notified of the high nickel levels last year by the city of Farmington’s Public Works Department.
Although nickel content in Farmington’s 266 separate sludge distributions exceeded ceiling standards, EPA’s calculations do not indicate that the cumulative level of nickel that ultimately reached the 29 properties was exceeded.
In addition to the sludge issue, EPA’s 2009 inspection found that from February 2007 to May 2009, on a total of 43 occasions, Farmington’s wastewater treatment plants exceeded the levels of ammonia in their discharges of treated wastewater. Those exceedances, in violation of limits set by the facilities’ respective NPDES permits, ranged from 7% to 2,013%, the inspection noted. Farmington’s East Wastewater Treatment Plant discharges its treated wastewater to the Kennedy Branch of Wolf Creek, while the West Wastewater Treatment Plant discharges to an unnamed tributary of the St. Francois River.
Source: U.S. EPA March 14, 2011