Congress found that improper and mismanaged disposal could create a danger to human health and the environment.
Congress found that due to the danger to human health land disposal of hazardous solid waste should be eliminated as landfills and surface disposal polluted the land, air and water, and should be the least favored method of disposal.
The Agency agreed that landfill and permitted surface disposal was the most dangerous disposal option. Therefore, EPA promoted the disposal of unlabelled hazardous solid waste (sludge/biosolids) as a fertilizer on home lawns, gardens, food crop production lands, parks, school yards, golf courses and forest land.
Congress found that the infectious characteristics of the pathogen pollutants in sludge makes it a hazardous waste. Whereas, EPA chose to create hazardous waste levels for certain pollutants which would contaminate groundwater under a mismanaged permitted landfill.
While Congress enacted the CERCLA, it was intended to give EPA another tool to use against the the polluters.
Congress was more specific in identifying the hazardous substances, toxic pollutants, imminent hazardous chemicals and pollutants or contaminates which could harm public health, and the environment.
On the other hand, EPA chose to us the normal application commercial fertilizer exclusion in the CERCLA as a mandate to dump hazardous sludge/biosolids as an unlabelled fertilizer on home lawns, gardens, food crop production land, schools yards, golf courses, and forest land.
Instead of a clear warning about the dangers to public health in its definition of a pollutant in part 503.9(t), EPA chose the term "organism" which includes all forms of life.
Plus, the implication of part 503 is that there are only nine metal pollutants that will kill us.
The intent of Congress in the CWA was to restore the waters of the United States. The CWA was enacted to prevent toxic pollutants from entering the waters, surface water, groundwater, as well as rivers, streams and the ocean, in toxic amounts.
A major point, was to prevent toxic pollutants from entering these waters from non-point sources of pollution.
Under the CWA, sludge/biosolids is a pollutant. The metals listed in part 503 are "Toxic Pollutants" which "will" cause death, disease, cancer, and other assorted physical and mental problems to organisms-human and animal.
EPA chose not to identify the metals in part 503 as CWA toxic pollutants, because no home owner, farmer, school district, golf course owner, or forest owner, including the Federal Bureau of Land Management would knowingly accept a fertilizer product loaded with toxic pollutants.
The Water Environment Federation (WEF) doesn't list toxic pollutants in its glossary. But it does know the toxic pollutants in sludge has the potential to kill you. It also knows that the infectious agents in sludge has the potential to create toxins which will can kill you. Yet, this organization still promotes sludge as a safe unlabelled fertilizer. WEF doesn't confine its terms to only the 13 organics in the part 503 risk assessment which EPA says has been banned, no longer manufactured or is restricted in use. Nor does WEF imply that the that the metals listed as pollutants in part 503 are non cancer causing agents as EPA did for the risk assessment.
It does list: toxic: having the characteristic of causing death or damage to humans, animals, or plants; poisonous.
toxic chemical: a chemical with the potential of causing death or damage to humans, animals, or plants; poison.
toxin: any of various poisonous substances produced by certain plant and animal cells, including bacterial toxins, phytotoxins, and zootoxins.
pollutant: an impurity (contaminant) that causes an undesirable change in the physical, chemical, or biological characteristics of the air, water, or land that may be harmful to or affect the health, survival, or activities of humans or other living organisms.
pollution: contaminants in the air, water, or soil that cause harm to human health or the environment.
Congress identified a point source of pollution and specifically excluded stormwater runoff from agricultural sites and return flows from irrigated agriculture.
The WEF says a non-point source of pollution can not be traced: nonpoint source pollution (NPS): pollution that cannot be traced to a single point (Example: outlet or pipe) because it comes from many individual places or a widespread area (typically urban, rural, and agricultural runoff).
EPA deliberately chose to create a traceable non-point sources of agricultural and urban pollution under the CWA by promoting its part 503 sludge policy. This is unregulated open dumping under the provisions of the RCRA.
EPA and the WEF know they are wrong in promoting solid waste (sludge/biosolids) dumping as a unlabelled fertilizer. WEF identifies these large farmland dump sites as a: landfill: a large, outdoor area for waste disposal; landfills where waste is exposed to the atmosphere (open dumps) are now illegal; in "sanitary" landfills, waste is layered and covered with soil.
EPA with its partner,the Water Environment Federation, created a multi-million dollar public relations campaign to change public perception about the dangers to public health from the toxic pollutants in sludge/biosolids. They even created the term biosolids and worked very hard to get it put in the dictionary.