Bakersfield, Calif.-Kern County officials regard as only a temporary setback a federal judge’s order prohibiting enforcement of a ban beginning Jan. 1 on land application of biosolids within unincorporated areas. The ban was approved by voters earlier this year. Sanitation districts in Los Angeles and Orange County brought suit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles claiming the ban would cause extreme hardships because no immediate disposal alternatives exist. Los Angeles trucks thousands of tons of processed sewage waste each year to fertilize the city’s 4,200-acre farm in the Kern area. U.S. District Judge Gary Fees indicated the ban likely conflicts with a state law intended to reduce the amount of waste dumped into landfills. Fees said he would refer the issue to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for further review, and that it was likely to wind up in the hands of the California Supreme Court.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain