Last spring, a farmer in Leelanau County started applying a kind of fertilizer to his fields: Sewage pumped from septic tanks, often called septage.
That kicked off a local fight about whether it’s legal to apply that septage waste in Centerville Township and sparked concerns about contaminating the land and water.
Those concerns could come up at a meeting this week.
Background
When Scott and Catherine Collins first moved to rural Leelanau County, they were surrounded by cherry trees.
But a few years ago, their neighbor tore those cherry trees out. Then a letter came announcing some changes to the farmland across from them.
“All of a sudden, that tank got put in, and then trucks started filling up the tank,” Catherine Collins said.
Those trucks were hauling septage — waste pumped from domestic septic tanks — to be injected into the fields.
“The smell is horrendous when they're offloading those trucks in the summertime,” said Scott Collins, sitting in front of a window that faces the fields. “It’s like standing next to an open sewer. … When the south wind’s blowing and we have our house open, we have to shut all our windows.”
But their main concern surrounded what was in that septage.
“I'm very concerned about our wells. Everybody that surrounds this property, you know, what is going into the water?” said Scott.
They’re worried about contaminants like pharmaceuticals and PFAS getting into the water table. The long-lasting chemicals cause a number of serious health effects.
And when Catherine looked into local laws, something stuck out to her: Centerville Township had an ordinance preventing septage application on land. And in cases where application was allowed, it required a special permit from the township.
“They had never applied for the township permit,” she said. “And that's when we found out they weren't ever going to apply for the township permit.”
Local law versus state law
Soon after the township got word of the septage application, it issued a cease and desist letter to the landowner and to the pumping company, Williams & Bay Pumping.
The landowner, Bob Eitzen, did not respond to our requests for comment.
Lynden Johncock, who co-owns Williams & Bay Pumping, says the company reached out to the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, which regulates septage application in Michigan under Part 117 of Michigan’s Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act.
“And it was not applicable to us per the state of Michigan, because we had received the right to be able to do land application by EGLE,” Johncock said.
In other words, the state told them Centerville Township’s ordinance didn’t apply to them.
So Williams & Bay didn’t follow the township’s cease and desist notice, and kept applying septage until the ground froze this past winter.
“There is, for good reason, a very emotional component to this for a lack of understanding,” Johncock said.
He points to the documents: The site is fully permitted by EGLE. And all the criteria and inspections required by the state were signed off on by the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department.
Both agencies say the site and the septage application are above board.
But Centerville Township’s ordinance says haulers must take the waste to a nearby septage treatment facility, like the one in Traverse City, if that facility has capacity.
Greg Merricle, with EGLE’s septic program, says there’s a few reasons why that ordinance doesn’t stand, at least in the state’s eyes.
“In order for a township or a county to have that ordinance that says, ‘You must take it here,’ they have to provide a wastewater plant within those boundaries that has the capacity to collect all of that material,” he said.
Traverse City’s plant isn’t within Centerville Township’s boundaries, or jurisdiction, he said. And other closer plants, like in Suttons Bay, accept only holding tank waste, not septic tank waste.
The second reason has to do with a radius. Traverse City can technically accept septage from anywhere within a 25-mile radius.
Most of Centerville Township falls within that radius. But because Williams & Bay has enough storage capacity, the state says they don’t have to haul it to Traverse City.
All of that aside, neighbors still have one big concern: Will this septage contaminate their drinking water?
To answer that, it’s important to understand what septage is and what it isn’t.
Septage and sewage sludge
Septage is waste from domestic septic tanks, including homes, bathrooms at businesses and even port-a-potties.
It is not sewage sludge. In Michigan, that refers to a final waste product from wastewater treatment plants. Sewage sludge is also often called biosolids.
“Generally speaking, biosolids are much more concentrated,” said Sara Heger, who researches sewage at the University of Minnesota’s Water Resource Center. “A septic tank is primarily liquid. … A typical waste from a wastewater treatment plant is often de-watered and generally has higher concentrations of many of these contaminants we’re talking about.”
Including things like metals, pharmaceuticals and PFAS.
For a long time, biosolids have also been applied to farm fields as fertilizer. And in some places, that’s had devastating results.
An organic beef operation in Livingston County was shut down for PFAS contamination in its cattle and fields after years of applying biosolids.
Several farms in Maine were rendered unfarmable for the same reason. Maine actually became the first state to ban the application of biosolids in 2022.
(The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency still hasn't issued standards for PFAS in biosolids applied as fertilizer.)
Because of this, biosolids are a much bigger concern for regulatory agencies like EGLE, but that doesn’t mean PFAS and other contaminants aren’t in septage.
“Depending upon the contaminant we're talking about, you're going to find it in biosolids and you're going to find it in septage,” said Heger. “But in general, because of how biosolids are processed, they tend to have higher concentrations of everything.”
Greg Merricle, with EGLE, says they’ve sampled some septage for PFAS in Michigan. Based on what they’ve found, it’s not a big concern for them.
“Septage should be very, very low, and we’ve found it to be very, very low in PFAS,” he said. “Your exposures inside your own home from the products you're using are going to be greater than the percentage of that product that goes off into the septic tank.”
Products like microwave popcorn, cookware, shampoo, waterproof mascara, dental floss and more all contain PFAS that can wash down the drain.
An interactive map of all permitted septage land application sites in Michigan. (Courtesy: EGLE)
“We're going to focus our efforts on biosolids right now, because the PFAS potential in septage theoretically should be very small,” he said.
Theoretically, because, if someone’s doing something industrial at home, like tanning their own animal hides and flushing it down the drain, Merricle said, it could drive up PFAS levels in septage.
But that’s rare, and not reflective of normal septage. However, elevated levels of PFAS in septage have been detected in private residential wells near an industrial park in Cadillac. Officials are still trying to determine a cause.
Applying septage to fields as fertilizer, like in Centerville Township, doesn’t require testing for things like PFAS or pharmaceuticals per state law.
For the most part, research has shown that PFAS doesn’t break down in soil very easily.
But near that farm field in Centerville Township, the water table is often 100 feet or more below where septage is injected, according to the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department. State law only requires 30 inches of separation.
State and local authorities say testing private wells is the responsibility of the owner.
'Never in my wildest dream'
Despite all that, when Catherine Collins and her husband Scott moved here several years ago to start their own farm surrounded by cherry trees, this wasn’t what they envisioned.
“We knew it [may] never always be cherry trees, but it would be some kind of agriculture,” she said. “Well, never in my wildest dream did I think that farming would be injecting sewage on a field across from the street from my house.”
And Scott says that while they’re not anti-agriculture, they do want more safeguards on what the farm across the street is putting into the ground.
For now, the state says that septage application is legal and permitted to start again this spring, pending review of required plans.
Officials from Centerville Township said there is no current litigation regarding this conflict.
The township’s attorney is expected to discuss the issue at a regular public meeting on Wednesday night at 6:30pm.
Answering more questions about septage in Centerville Township:
The Eitzen farm has a conservation easement. Why is this allowed on conservancy land?
An agricultural land easement was placed on the property in 2017, according to county records. Under this arrangement, the property owners retain ownership of their land, but release their development rights and agree to keep the land in agricultural use.
The Leelanau Conservancy, through a mixture of donations and federal grants, subsidizes the property owner for the lost value. (Local property taxes do not contribute.)
“This particular conservation easement … contains specific reserve rights for the owner to conduct commercial agriculture on the property,” said Chase Heise, conservation easement program director for the Leelanau Conservancy.
According to the state and federal government, septage application as fertilizer is an acceptable agricultural activity and, as such, is protected by Michigan’s Right to Farm Act.
“The Conservancy has no legal authority to prevent the owners from engaging in permitted, accepted agricultural activities,” Heise said.
The Eitzen farm is private property, unlike the Conservancy’s natural areas and preserves, which are owned by the Leelanau Conservancy and open to the public for recreational use.
What is that big tank on the property, and why is it allowed to be there?
It’s a frac tank, used to store septage waste before it’s applied to fields. It is not currently permitted as a storage facility, but as a vehicle, which is allowed by EGLE.
“To build an in-situ storage tank requires a lot more effort, engineering reviews, stuff like that,” said Greg Merricle, who runs EGLE’s septage program. “It's a much longer process. It's much more expensive to build.”
So EGLE allows smaller units that store 20,000 gallons or less to be permitted as vehicles. Those are inspected and approved by the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department.
So who regulates septage application, the state or the county?
The state does, through EGLE. But EGLE contracts county health departments, in this case the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department, to oversee, inspect and help permit sites.
The initial application for a permit goes to the state, and then EGLE sends an inspection request to local authorities.
Most of those inspections must happen annually, said Clay McNitt, an environmental sanitarian at Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department.
A number of things have to happen for a permit to be renewed each year. Pumpers must submit info like how many gallons of septage they’ve applied, soil samples that test for nutrient loads and a crop plan to show what they’ll grow.
“These fields that they're putting sewage on, they're supposed to be farmed, and they’re supposed to be growing an active crop on them,” said McNitt.
In most cases, those crops are grown for livestock or as a cash crop. McNitt says no sites in Leelanau County where septage is applied are growing crops for human consumption.
Septage at the Eitzen property is injected below the surface after being screened to remove larger objects. In locations where septage is surface applied, it must be treated (often with lime) to stabilize the acidity and reduce pathogens, then incorporated into the soil within 48 hours.
There’s a kettle hole at the Eitzen property. Does that connect directly to the water table?
A kettle hole is a depression in the ground, and there's one on this farm. IPR has heard different accounts of whether it fills with water or remains dry.
(If water was present in the hole, it would raise more serious questions about the septage connecting directly to the water table.)
Clay McNitt, with the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department, said it remains dry and therefore isn’t a concern.
He estimated the kettle hole is about 60 to 70 feet deep and the water table in that location is about 150 feet deep, leaving about 80 feet between the surface and the water table.
State law only requires 30 inches of separation between septage injection and the water table. County code requires four feet of suitable soils in between to filter viruses and bacteria.
Testing septage for contaminants like PFAS and pharmaceuticals is not required.
“There's the opportunity for soil microbes to break down some of those emerging contaminants, which many of them, under aerobic conditions, may break down,” said Sara Heger, who researches sewage at the University of Minnesota. “If you're really following the requirements, applying at the appropriate rates – you’re not allowed to pond water, for instance, when you’re applying septage — you know, you shouldn't be saturating that soil profile, and therefore that water shouldn't be reaching wells.”
