The next hearing in Los Angeles’ battle to overturn Kern County’s 2006 ban on the land application of treated human and industrial waste may be before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Attorneys for Los Angeles and Orange County sanitation agencies and the city of Los Angeles, after loosing a bid to have an unfavorable September 2009 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling overturned by the full appeals court, have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take up their case against Kern County’s Measure E.

Steven Mayer, a private attorney working on the case for Kern County, said Thursday he thinks it’s unlikely the Supreme Court will take the case.

The only remaining federal claim against Kern County is that its voter-approved ban on spreading sewage sludge on farmland — designed to protect against environmental contamination — violates the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.

“The ordinance just doesn’t impact interstate commerce in any way,” Mayer said.

U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess, the first judge to hear the case, disagreed with Mayer.

But Appeals Court Judges Dairmuid O’Scannlain, Pamela Rymer and Kim Wardlaw overturned Feess’ ruling on the interstate commerce clause and lifted an injunction that had prevented Kern County from enforcing Measure E.

“Nothing in Measure E hampers the recyclers’ ability to ship waste out of state,” O’Scannlain wrote in September. “In short, Measure E in no way burdens the recyclers’ protected interest in the interstate waste market.”

Los Angeles Deputy City Attorney Keith Pritsker said Thursday that the Appeals Court decision was out of line with other decisions in other circuits.

And he argued that Kern County’s ban could set off a chain-reaction, allowing other local jurisdictions to ban land applications of the highly-treated waste.

“It makes it harder for jurisdictions to recycle biosolids,” he said. “It forces you to take it elsewhere. What happens if all the other elsewheres adopt similar bans?”

Prior to the passage of Measure E, Los Angeles and Orange County spread more than 420,000 wet tons of sludge on 10,000 acres of Kern County farmland in two locations — Green Acres south of Bakersfield and farmer Shane Magan’s Honeybucket Farms in northern Kern County.

Pritsker said Los Angeles still delivers 25 to 26 trucks of the treated waste to Green Acres and it has operated there without complaint or illness for 16 years.

While Kern County is currently allowed to ban the spreading of sewage sludge, county lawyers have said Kern won’t do so until the case is resolved.

“Until we get some clarity from the court, I don’t think we will go out and close down Green Acres or Shane Magan,” said Assistant County Counsel Steve Schuett in September.

Now everything is on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether to take the case.