The is an opinion watch the video first then read my opinion ….
Thank you Bill Scott
Biosolids ——
Since the middle of 2016, Florida sewer plants have been exporting large shipments their sewage remnants known as biosolids or sludge to a faulty in Lakeland called BS Ranch & Farm, Inc.
BS Ranch & Farm Mission Statement from their website: “BS Ranch & Farm is a farm in the recycling and composting business. Our goal is to provide the highest quality products, the most competitive rates, and the most convenient disposal sites. We are driven not only by our sense of responsibility to the earth but also to our future generations. By cooperating with local residents, businesses and government agencies we hope to promote the health of our environment.”
BS Ranch & Farm is neither a Ranch or a Farm it has a permit for industrial wastewater and processes yard waste.
But thanks to Polk County — BS Ranch & Farm has an LTD agriculture business tax certificate on the industrial-zoned property, account # 145778. Why? They should have an Industrial Waste Water business tax certificate per Polk County. Currently, Polk County is investigating this issue.
BS Ranch & Farm, Inc. and their property butt up to Saddle Creek ecologically sensitive land owned by SWFWMD and Florida Audubon Society Inc that runs into Lake Hancock and then discharges into the Peace River than runs into the Charlotte County estuary system out to the Gulf of Mexico.
The practice of importing to Lakeland large shipments their sewage remnants aka biosolids or sludge is now under fire by local citizens as being potentially harmful. And the possibility of endangering wildlife, and having an ecological disaster in Lake Handcock and Peace River.
But in 2014 BS Ranch & Farm, Inc. from March 24 through at least August 4, 2014, accepted 1.4 million gallons of septage and wastewater biosolids at their located off of Maine Ave in Lakeland without the authorization of the Florida DEP. William And Brandy Stanton who own BS Ranch & Farm, Inc paid a fine of $9,500.00. (Contest Order Click here)
Then the FDEP District Director SWD Mary Yeargan issued the polluter BS Ranch & Farm, Inc a permit for Industrial Wastewater #FLA8666202 (Click Here) on March 25, 2016, but Yeargan never made them clean up this mess of the 1.4 million gallons of septage and wastewater biosolids already on the site.
This is from their permit from DEP- “The BS Ranch & Farm facility includes scales, screens, storage areas, mixers, loaders, biological treatment beds, support areas, access roads, and water containment areas. Feedstocks include wood (yard waste), pre-consumer and post-consumer vegetative waste, animal manure and animal by-products, food scraps, wastewater treatment facility effluent, septage, biosolids, and organic sludges. The treatment process produces mulch, compost, fertilizer and soil amendments. The approximate daily average weights of feed material and products are 3,870 tons and 1,088 tons, respectively.”
By the import monthly tonnage schedule in the permit, it makes this the largest facility of its kind in Florida. That’s 1.08 million tons or 999,000 80,000 lbs semi truckloads a year of feedstocks include wood (yard waste), pre-consumer and post-consumer vegetative waste, animal manure and animal by-products, food scraps, wastewater treatment facility effluent, septage, biosolids, and organic sludges. The treatment process produces mulch, compost, fertilizer and soil amendments. The approximate daily average weights of feed material and products are 3,870 tons and 1,088 tons, respectively.
Which means the likelihood of an ecological nightmare at the same time for Saddle Creek and Lake Hancock.
In the BS Ranch & Farm permit: The treatment beds may be operated both aerobically and anaerobically, with decomposition and stabilization accomplished through lengthy treatment periods of more than eight months. Material failing to meet the treatment demonstration testing will be returned to the process for further treatment.
Drone video’s show that septic companies dumping their trucks at BS Ranch & Farm — This is not biosolids this is straight human shit on the ground, Why?
BS Ranch & Farm, Inc is NOT required to test what is coming into this above-ground earthen bermed facility.
BS Ranch & Farm is NOT allowed to discharge any odor or material outside of their grounds but by aerial photography (google earth)— photos seem to disagree with BS Ranch & Farm assessment of breaks in the berms going outside permitted area heading towards Saddle Creek.
Also, when it rains where does the excess water go when the ponds have no more freeboard?
Other discharges on the property show deforestation over time by dumping something on the property from tankers.
Compost —–
Compost is rightly celebrated as the perfect soil amendment and a great way to recycle yard and garden waste. But not all compost is created equal. In fact, commercial compost based on “biosolids” or sewage sludge can be downright dangerous!
Currently, BS Ranch and Farm is being sued by the Florida DEP over the odors coming from the BS Ranch and Farm facility in Lakeland.
BS Ranch and Farm & BS Upcycling LLC takes Biosolids, Chipped wood, Land clearing, Scalping’s, Brush & Logs and Yard Debris (and has a contract with the City of Lakeland to take this yard debris) and mixes it all together and make “so-called” Organic Compost. Solids made from biomaterials, just what the term suggests. One can’t help but think of Shakespeare, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Except biosolids don’t smell so sweet. And what’s in this name is otherwise known as shit.
BS Upcycling LLC has no Polk County business tax certificate. Why?
In the meantime, the spread of sewage sludge made compost on America’s gardens and farmland continues in Florida
The problem is you may not even know that the compost you buy contains sludge. Since 2003, the EPA has allowed marketers to substitute the word “compost” for sewage sludge (or biosolids) on ingredient lists. The fact that some sludge is allowed to cure before it is used or treated to remove a handful of the thousands of contaminants it contains, does not make it safe. More amazing is the fact that some makers of compost that include sewage use the word “organic” in their marketing.
The struggle to inform the public on the dangers of biosolids pits small gardeners and environmental activists against some high-profit industries, handsomely-paid public relations firms and some of the country’s largest municipal governments. It’s a battle between those who want to greenwash the product by depicting sludge as beneficial recycling and those warning that sewage sludge, the basis for several brands of commercial compost, is a toxic mix of lead, dioxin, asbestos, concentrated pesticides, and numerous heavy metals and pathogens.
Because the recycling of sewage sludge is big business. It’s estimated that half the sewage sludge generated in the United States ends up on farmland and backyard gardens. In 2007, the infamous Carlyle Group, an investment consortium known for its armament’s speculation, bought the sludge recycling company Synagro for $772 million. Synagro, the object of a recent CBS television broadcast of “Undercover Boss,” is the largest processor of sewage sludge in the country. Investors see sludge as a guaranteed growth business. Municipalities, saddled with the responsibility of what to do with all that sludge, see composting as a gift from on high.
The EPA 503 regulations mandate and enforce testing for many of the pathogens, metals, and toxins in class A biosolids with virtually undetectable levels of them. Industrial waste has not been allowed to be dumped into US sewer systems for over 40 years now and is strictly monitored. The organic chemicals that you allude to in this video are almost completely broken down during the composting or Class A pasteurization cycle, Load limits for metals from the so-called bad biosolid compost is in the hundreds of years and that is if they are put on each and every year in amounts the average gardener would never use. In fact, our tap water may have as many or more toxins in it than the treated biosolids that are class A. There has never been a proven, litigated or medically documented case of PROPERLY TREATED biosolids being used in agriculture, horticulture or home garden use causing death or harm to humans, soil or food.
The Part 503 EPA regulations focus on the following three parameters as a basis for determining sewage sludge quality:
- The presence of pollutants (arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, molybdenum, nickel, selenium, and zinc)
- The presence of pathogens (e.g., bacteria, viruses, parasites)
- The sewage sludge’s attractiveness to vectors (e.g., rodents, flies, mosquitoes). Sewage sludge quality varies from municipality to municipality with respect to these three parameters.
Per the Clean Water Act Section 405(d), EPA must review the biosolids standards every two years. As part of this review, EPA works to identify pollutants in biosolids. Based on EPA’s biennial reviews and three national sewage sludge surveys, EPA identified over 350 pollutants in sewage sludge, including metals; dioxins and dioxin-like compounds; inorganic ions; certain organics (e.g., polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, semivolatiles); polybrominated diphenyl ethers (flame retardants); pharmaceuticals; steroids and hormones; and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.
Odor —–
The smell is so bad some days, the neighbor’s gag inside their own offices and home nearby, why?
BS Ranch & Farm Odor Statement from their website: “Here at BS Ranch and Farm we take pride in our Quality Soil and hard work and dedication that it takes to produce this nutrient-rich product. We understand that from time to time, like most Ag industry farms and ranches, our customers and neighbors have issues that they would like addressed with the proper personnel. Below you will find; our Odor Control Officers contact information, our Standard Operating Procedures for Odor (SOP Odor), an Odor Complaint Form, as well as a map of the surrounding areas and the various odor-producing sites.”
EPA states, “Biosolids may have their own distinctive odor depending on the type of treatment it has been through. Some biosolids may have only a slight musty, ammonia odor. Others have a stronger odor that may be offensive to some people. Much of the odor is caused by compounds containing sulfur and ammonia, both of which are plant nutrients.”
BS Ranch & Farm permit states that NO odor, Biosolid or water of any sort shall leave the property from the permitted areas.
Florida DEP is currently suing BS Ranch & Farm for the odors coming off their site.
BS Ranch & Farm states in the above statement that, “like most Ag industry farms and ranches”, but BS Ranch & Farm is neither a Ranch or a Farm it has a permit for industrial wastewater and processes yard waste.
So, what is the City of Lakeland and Polk County going to do about this?
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