SEWAGE SLUDGE DEBATED; SUMMIT EXPLORES USE.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Government experts, farmers and environmentalists will give testimony Wednesday on the ramifications of spreading treated sewage sludge on Antelope Valley farms.

The testimony will come Wednesday at a ``sludge summit'' called by Supervisor Michael Antonovich as state officials prepare an environmental impact report on new regulations that would allow sewage sludge - or ``biosolids'' - to be spread over the valley floor and most of California.

``What we are going to try to do is take some testimony, from both sides of the fence, as to the impact of biosolids on the environment,'' said Antonovich Deputy Conal McNamara. ``It's been an ongoing thing. It's an attempt to get some clarity on this issue.''

The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. at Lancaster City Hall, 44933 Fern Ave. Taking testimony will be Antonovich; Supervisor Steve Perez of Kern County, where sludge spreading is being phased out; and representatives of Assemblyman George Runner, R-Lancaster, and state Sen. W.J. ``Pete'' Knight, R-Palmdale.

Sludge spreading has been controversial in the Antelope Valley since the 1980s, with local environmentalists fearing that it could carry harmful bacteria, viruses and industrial wastes.

Such contaminants pose more of a problem in the valley, the environmentalists say, because its regular winds would spread them around, and its water basin is a closed system, with no outlet to the ocean.

But proponents say sewage sludge has been used as a farm fertilizer for decades - for some 75 years in Los Angeles County - and is safe when used following the guidelines drawn up by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

``It's not a new concept,'' said Bob Horvath, head of the technical services department of the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County, whose treatment plants turn out 9,000 tons of sludge a week. ``It is something that has gone on for a lot of years.''

The county sanitation districts get rid of some of their sludge as fertilizer on farms in Kern and Kings counties, burn some in a San Bernardino County cement kiln, bury some in a landfill, and provide some to a company that turns it into soil amendments for backyard gardeners.

In the Antelope Valley, sludge controversies started in the 1980s with a proposal to haul in Los Angeles sewage. Shot down by local opposition, the proposal resurfaced in 1990 and was shot down again.

In 1996, a company spread sludge on a farm east of Lancaster and was immediately pounced on by local environmentalists, who videotaped the material blowing off the farm in high winds.

Regional water quality officials ordered the company to stop, and it said it was pulling out of the Antelope Valley because of the controversy.

Meanwhile, another company that was spreading sludge on a westside farm just south of the Kern County line near 140th Street West proposed creating a plant to turn sewage sludge, grass clippings and other types of plant waste into garden compost.

Los Angeles County supervisors - with Antonovich dissenting - approved the composting plan in 1998. But Antelope Valley air-quality officials ordered the open-air composting heaps enclosed, and the operation has never started.

Because of similar controversies elsewhere, the State Water Resources Control Board has prepared a general order that they said would help provide statewide, uniform standards for applying treated sludge on farms, golf courses or nurseries.

``The state is basing its regulations on the federal regulations, and they've been called into question,'' said Lyle Talbot, president of Desert Citizens Against Pollution.

Talbot plans to show at Wednesday's meeting a videotape of testimony before the Kern County supervisors last October by research microbiologist David Lewis, who does work for the EPA. Lewis said the federal regulations are scientifically flawed and that research promised by the federal agency was never conducted, he said.

``For our state to be drafting their rules based on the federal, we feel it's not well founded,'' Talbot said.