A bill that would give Grundy County the legal authority to regulate the application of human sewage on farmland in the community found opponents from a state agency during a senate committee hearing Wednesday.
State Sen. Janice Bowling, R-Tullahoma, whose district includes Grundy County, is the sponsor of senate bill 1263. She told fellow members of the senate energy, agriculture and natural resources committee the people of Grundy County, and similar counties, need a way to stop unwanted dumping of treated human sewage, known as biosolids, on local farmland.
“This is a very important issue to several of my rural counties,” Bowling said of her bill. “Grundy County in particular, though, has written a resolution asking for the ability to regulate the biosolids that are dumped — no pun intended — on Grundy County.”
Bowling said smaller counties in proximity to larger counties are being used to take human waste those counties didn’t create. She recognized the benefit for farmers — for fertilizer or soil nutrients — but said Grundy County is getting overwhelmed, and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation has few resources to properly regulate the use of biosolids. The agency has permitting authority but lacks the ability to closely regulate the practice, she said.
“The large counties are overgrowing the capacity to tend to their own solid waste, and consequently, they are getting TDEC to permit these allowances to go into other rural counties and surrounding areas,” Bowling said. “TDEC has authorized 88 dumping permits on Grundy County. And that, of course, has created not only a health hazard, but it’s also visually an environmental hazard because of the tourism that takes place in Grundy County.”