October 17, 2003
EPA has made a final decision not to regulate dioxins in land-applied sewage
sludge. After five years of study, including outside peer review, the Agency has
determined that dioxins from this source do not pose a significant risk to human
health or the environment. The most highly exposed people, theoretically, are
those people who apply sewage sludge as a fertilizer to their crops and animal
feed, and consume their own crops and meat products over their entire lifetimes.
EPA’s analysis shows that even for this theoretical population, only 0.003 new
cases of cancer could be expected each year or only 0.22 new cases of cancer
over a span of 70 years. The risk to people in the general population of new
cancer cases resulting from sewage sludge containing dioxin is even smaller due
to lower exposures to dioxin in land-applied sewage sludge than the highly
exposed farm family that EPA modeled.EPA’s 2001 Dioxins Update to the National Sewage Sludge Survey indicates that
dioxins levels in treated sewage sludge have declined since the last EPA survey
in 1988. This downward trend is expected to continue as regulatory controls are
placed on additional sources of dioxins in the environment, particularly on some
combustion practices. Dioxins are a group of highly toxic persistent compounds
that are a byproduct of certain combustion and chemical manufacturing processes.
Sewage sludge is the byproduct of treatment processes that purify wastewater
before it is released into local waterways.
For more information about this decision, visit: http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/biosolids/
. For more information on dioxins, visit: http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/pbt/dioxins.htm
.
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Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA
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