Landowners concerned by septage application

Landowners from the Peterson Hill area of Pleasant Valley and along Deep Creek gathered Sept. 23 at the Mace Art Gallery to discuss the issue of septage being applied to the fields of Grove Farms in Naples.

Neighbors are concerned by solid waste they say drifts from the operation, which is located at 1580 Lookout View Road, as well the smell, and worries about water quality in Deep Creek.

In January, farm owner Don Grove submitted a septage management plan for land application, which was reapproved by the Department of Environmental Quality in February. Grove is one of two operations in the five northern counties of Idaho approved to apply septage (human waste pumped from residential septic systems) to farmland. This is due to the grandfather status of the operation before county ordinances prohibited septage farms in 2006.

Grove and son Jereme Grove were on hand to address their neighbors’ concerns as well as DEQ representative Chris Westerman who has been working with the Groves.

Downhill neighbor Mike Stephens has been working to rein-in what he calls a public health hazard since this spring, when runoff from a storm event ran melted snow mixed with septage down a draw behind his house and through the brand-new shop building he was constructing.

“This is not just septage,” Stephens said, referring to pill bottles, tampon applicators, condoms and other garbage that are turned in or drift off the fields. “That’s a garbage dump. It’s an abomination.”

Stephens and other neighbors complained to DEQ in March about septage runoff and dispersal of solid waste associated with the septage spreading, prompting Westerman to visit the site from his office in Coeur d’Alene. Since the Grove Farms sit at the top of Peterson Hill, runoff is able to travel many directions from the farms towards Deep Creek and the surrounding valley.

Westerman’s visit resulted in a complaint response letter to Grove, disallowing the use of certain fields in the operation to be used in the non-growing season, and re-stressing the setbacks from property lines and water sources required by the DEQ.

Still not satisfied by the toothless response from DEQ, Stephens took his case to Governor Otter during Bonners Ferry’s Capital for a Day. Otter listened to the case, and requested that Stephens send him a report after discussing the matter with DEQ representatives.

A June 9 meeting with the Boundary County Commissioners resulted in much the same for Stephens, as commissioners discussed the issue and specifics with DEQ and discerned that Grove was within his rights for activities on the land as long as he followed the DEQ regulations.

According to the DEQ calculations for Grove’s SMPLA application, Grove has around 340 acres of land eligible for septage application. Using alfalfa or grass to pull out nitrogen (the number one concern for DEQ) Grove is allowed to spread over 14 million gallons of waste on the fields annually. Currently, the operation disperses less than 5 million gallons a year. Much of it comes from Kootenai and Bonner counties due to a reduced disposal fee over taking it to Spokane.

“That only amounts to about seven or eight pounds of nitrogen.” Westerman said.

Per DEQ regulations, Grove adds lime to stabilize the sludge at a ph of 12 for 30 minutes before application. Otherwise, the material must be tilled within 6 hours of application. He has been liming everything all summer to allow grazing of cattle on the application areas, he told neighbors.

“The ideal way is to keep it tilled in every night to keep down the odors,” Grove said, “but they want me to put it on green, growing grass to suck up the nutrients.”

Westerman tried to allay fears of groundwater contamination at the Mace Gallery meeting, saying the 200 to 400 foot deep aquifer was a good buffer away from surface contamination. The non-growing season is another matter though.

“We told Don, you can apply to your land as long as the applications don’t cause a runoff issue. They can’t runoff your fields. Ideally, there’s nothing coming off, but this spring, we had an issue.”

Grove Farms has been applying the septage to the fields since 1998. Neighbors haven’t complained until recently, Grove says.

“They have a (SMPLA) plan that coincides with our rules, so we say it’s OK. If the county has something different to say, that’s up to the county.” Westerman said.

EPA 503 regulations govern the application of septage to farmland, which Grove says he adheres to.

“The one time I’m in trouble for, I was applying it last winter. I noticed it was getting out of the field. It got 30 feet out of the field and stopped. I immediately stopped applying in the area,” Grove said.

“And fixed the problem,” Jereme Grove said.

“If you want to find violations, go look at the city of Bonners Ferry,” Grove said. “When you think, oh, they should take this to a sewage plant, go ahead and look at Bonners. It goes out into the river. You get to drink it if you live downstream.”

Westerman clarified that Bonners Ferry is under EPA guidelines for their treatment plant.

Grove promised neighbors to try and address their concerns if they would contact him first. He said that by the time the DEQ is notified and they notify him, he has no idea what practices originally caused the problem.

“Odor is the majority of the issue for most of us,” said Bonnie Stephens, Mike’s wife and Don’s sister.

Shifting wind can carry the smells to many of the neighbors.

“Odors are a tough thing to regulate,” Westerman said. “When you do have persistent, unbearable odor issues, we’re asking that you contact Don. He’s going to be able to tell you whether or not there’s something different he can do.”

“That’s impossible to do, since the wind is so changeable,” Neighbor Ken Nystrom said. The closest neighbor to the application sites, Nystrom has been keeping a notebook log of the incidents of strong odor at his house, a notebook that is filling with entries. The spring runoff event created a green pond behind Nystrom’s house this March.

Wildlife is another concern for neighbors.

“The crows used to carry golf balls,” Neighbor Frank Hanks said, “They carry other things now. But it’s not like it used to be. I don’t think we smell as much where we live as it used to.”

“We had the federal people in this summer,” Grove told neighbors. “They thought it was a good place to be dumping, that it was well-taken care of. They were quite happy with it.”

“I don’t know that anything’s going to be perfect, but if he’s doing these things right, in accordance with our rules, and in accordance with the 503 regs,” Westerman said, “if things are getting better, then he’s making improvements, and that’s important.”

“Family businesses are what I’m dealing with,” Grove said. “I’m willing to listen to any suggestions that are practical and could be applied to help, but when you just start talking total shutdown, I’m not on board with that.”