Sludge Beneficial Land-Use Permits: Learning More

Learn more about following our progress and your options for participating as we review applications for sludge beneficial land-use permits. Find out how land applicators operate to protect your health and the environment.

What is "land application"?
What will this permit do?
Who is applying?
What else can I learn about the applicant?
How can I learn what other people think about this?
What if I have more questions?

What is "land application"?

Sludge and septage contain nutrients that may be limited or missing from the soils of a particular site. "Land application" is a way of reusing sludge for use as a soil amendment. By spreading the sludge over the land or tilling it into the soil, the soil can become fertile enough to grow hay or other agricultural products.

Under this permit, the waste applied is a sludge produced in either of the following ways:

treated municipal wastewater
purified water from a lake or stream into drinking water
lime-stabilized domestic septage from residential septic tanks

What will this permit do?

The point of applying sludge to land is to increase the level of one or more nutrients. But if the levels of those nutrients are already high enough, the extra nutrients in the sludge might run off into nearby streams. In some cases, too much of one nutrient in the soil can limit the growth of plants.

So before issuing a permit, we study the land where effluent will be applied. We consider things like:

water and nutrient needs of the plants,
how the soils hold water and nutrients, and
nearby wells and groundwater sources.
A beneficial land-use permit does the following:
Before the sludge is brought to the application site, it is analyzed to ensure that it meets safe levels of bacteria based on state and federal guidelines and regulations. Nutrients in the sludge must also not exceed the land’s capacity to absorb them.
After the sludge is applied and spread, best management practices must be used to ensure the site does not harm human health or the environment.

By obtaining a permit, the owners and operators of the site where the sludge or septage is applied to the land agree to follow its requirements.

Who is applying?

When you see a public notice about a permit application, look at the first paragraph to find the name of the applicant.

If you do not see the notice published in a newspaper, you can find public notices on our website:

What else can I learn about the applicant?

You can learn about this applicant and their plans by contacting them directly. The last paragraph in the public notice will tell you how to contact the applicant.

We also have ways you can learn about this applicant's history with us — for example:

Other facilities they have permits for
Other businesses they are related to
Their environmental track record

How can I learn what other people think about this?

On our website you can search for information about comments others have made about this application. Under Step Three be sure to choose "Include all correspondence...".

What if I have more questions?

Our Public Education Program can help you find the status of applications and tell you more about our permitting processes.

Call PEP at 800-687-4040
Or e-mail pep@tceq.texas.gov

How can I follow the progress of an application for this permit?

Below is the basic process for a sludge beneficial land-use permit application.

Please note that due to the great number of different scenarios possible, we cannot cover all the details that could potentially apply. Here we give a basic description of your rights and responsibilities if you wish to become involved—just be aware that variations can occur.

First Notice: Publication of the Notice of Receipt of Application and Intent to Obtain Permit. We call this notice a "NORI" (norry). When our administrative review of the application is complete, we mail the NORI to the permit applicant for publishing. We also mail the NORI to a required mailing list of government officials and certain landowners.

The NORI will tell you where you can look at a hard copy of the permit application.

Once we mail the NORI, you may start giving us your comments. You may also request a public meeting or a contested case hearing (see Request a Contested Case Hearing, below), or request to be added to the mailing list for future notices.

See more details on the NORI.
See how to get added to the mailing list.

Second Notice: Mailing of the Notice of Application and Preliminary Decision. We call this a "NAPD" (nap-dee). When our technical review of the application is complete and our executive director has made a preliminary decision, we mail the NAPD to the permit applicant for publishing. We also mail it to a required mailing list of government officials and certain landowners. In addition, we mail it to anyone who submitted comments, requested a public meeting or contested case hearing, or requested to be on the mailing list for future notices.

The public comment period typically ends 30 days from the publication date of the NAPD. The publication date is significant because we only consider timely filed comments. However if our executive director has scheduled a public meeting for a later date, the comment period will be extended until the end of that public meeting. For assistance in determining the extent of the comment period, call 800-687-4040.

See more details on this part of the process.

Making public comments. If you make a comment, you will get a response from us. Here's how it works:
1. We gather all the comments given to us by the end of the public comment period and respond to all timely and relevant comments.
2. When two or more people make the same comment, we put their comments together and make one response to that group of comments.
3. When we have responded to all comments, we put all comments and our responses in a document called our "response to comments."
4. We send this document to everyone who submitted a comment or requested to be put on the mailing list for future mailings.
See more details on this part of the process, including how to make a comment.

Requesting a public meeting. In a public meeting, you may ask our staff and the applicant your questions and give comments.

Anyone may ask for a public meeting any time between the date the NORI is mailed and the end of the comment period (see Second Notice above).

See more details on this part of the process.

Protesting our executive director’s decision to issue the permit. Once we release our ED's decision on a permit application, which is mailed with the response-to-comment document, there are two common ways to ask the commissioners to consider your protest:
- Request a contested case hearing. With this you are requesting that the commissioners refer the matter to the State Office of Administrative Hearings. A SOAH hearing is conducted in a manner similar to civil trials in state district court.
  
  Your hearing request must be based on a timely submitted public comment. You must also include a description of how you would be adversely affected in a way not common to the general public.
  
  See more details on this part of the process.
- File a Request for Reconsideration. With this you are requesting that the commissioners reconsider the ED's decision.
  
  See more details on this part of the process.
How can I learn when these events happen?

Search: Commissioners’ Integrated Database Commissioners’ Integrated Database
Call: 800-687-4040
E-mail: pep@tceq.texas.gov

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