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Ocean City Has Troubles Giving Away Its Sludge

There are not as many farmers looking to take on processed sludge as fertilizer from Ocean City.

That has left the resort spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year sending the sludge to the dump.

Brooks Clayville, a farmer in Snow Hill, told the Salisbury Daily Times that the problem is timing.

With all of his crops he won’t have enough room to store the sludge until winter time while much of the sludge in Ocean City comes during the tourist season.

But there are other concerns.

The state is considering a proposal to ban the use of biosolids between November and February.

And there is a federal lawsuit by the environmental group…the Waterkeeper Alliance against Hudson Farm for alleged pollution.

The environmentalists say they saw what they believed was a pile of chicken manure on the property.

But it turned out to be sludge that came from Ocean City.

Don Rush is the News Director at Delmarva Public Media. An award-winning journalist, Don reports major local issues of the day, from sea level rise, to urban development, to the changing demographics of Delmarva.