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Fort Collins Coloradoan
May 12, 2005
Permit pending for
septic system at wildlife research facility
The Colorado Division of Wildlife is closer to formal approval of a septic system at its Fort Collins animal research facility that disposes of disinfectants, grease removers and raw animal blood. No other facility that does Biosafety Level 2 research has a septic system to dispose of waste, said Valois Shea, an environmental scientist with the EPA's Underground Injection Control branch. Monday, the EPA published a draft permit that would formalize what the DOW has done for years with the EPA's blessing. EPA will accept public comments until June 9 but will not hold a public hearing unless a significant number of people request it. The permit, for a so-called Class V injection well, would last 10 years. The septic system is located at the DOW's Foothills Wildlife Research Facility, 4330 W. LaPorte Ave., northwest of the city's raw water treatment plant. The DOW conducts live animal research at the 40-acre site, including studies on chronic wasting disease, an always-fatal brain-wasting disease found in deer and elk. The DOW applied in 2001 for the permit, anticipating increased testing of deer and elk at the site for chronic wasting disease. EPA "didn't feel comfortable" issuing an "enforceable permit" but, after consulting chronic wasting disease experts, allowed the DOW to install and operate the septic system as long as facility workers followed steps to minimize discharges of active prions to the system, Shea said. Prions are the folded proteins that cause transmissible spongiform encephalopathies such as chronic wasting disease. "The situation was so unique, and whatever we decided to go with was going to be precedent-setting," Shea said. "We wanted it to be based on scientific decisions. It's kind of been a long, ongoing process to decide that everything we decided makes sense. "No other lab like this is operating on a septic system." The permit would require the DOW to monitor concentrations of contaminants in the system every three months. Prions, however, can't be measured or detected in waste fluids or septic tanks. Therefore, the EPA would require the DOW to use best management practices to deactivate and minimize the release of prions into the system - steps the DOW said it already takes. "We formalized what we had informally set up with them," Shea said. Mike Miller, the DOW veterinarian who runs the research facility, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. There is some concern that the agent that inactivates prions and the germicides used to decontaminate the lab could kill microbes in the septic system that break down waste, according to the EPA. Without those microbes, the system would not be able to break down nonlaboratory waste in the system. The DOW disposes of an average maximum of 335 gallons of human and laboratory waste and about an ounce of blood per day, according to the application. Lab waste is decontaminated and prions deactivated before being rinsed down a floor drain, Shea said. A screen stops solid waste from going down the drain, she said. That lab waste, along with human waste from a DOW office, funnels into a two-chambered septic system that settles out solids and holds fluids for biodegration by bacteria, Shea said. It's then released into the ground. "We don't anticipate that any infective prions are actually getting into the septic system," Shea said. There are 21 domestic wells within a mile of the site, according to the EPA. One of those belongs to Bruce Davidson, who lives about a mile northeast of the research facility. Groundwater from the research site flows north toward Claymore Lake and Davidson's property. Davidson said he doesn't drink water from the well anymore but uses it to irrigate his land. "What we know is there isn't enough science about (chronic wasting disease) for any scientific opinion to be made," Davidson said. "The same was true in '44 and '45 with atomic energy. In those days, the government was telling us it was clean." DOW leases the land for the research site from Colorado State University. CSU Biosafety Officer Bob Ellis said the septic system disposal method is safe because prions are deactivated before they are drained into the system. Active prions that make it to the system likely wouldn't move through the aquifer because the proteins tend to cling to other solids, including soil. "If we had a problem, we would have stated it," Ellis said. In the statement of basis for its draft permit, the EPA said research at the facility was important to understanding chronic wasting disease. "Our intent is to help reduce environmental risks from potentially CWD-contaminated wastes associated with laboratory testing and thereby support the continuation and expansion of these programs, as necessary," the EPA wrote in its statement of basis for the permit. |