Toxic Sludge Is So Good For You They Grow Our Foods In It!

[Peter Lemkin]

Sludge in the News

• South Carolina Residents Raising a Stink over Charlotte's Sewage Sludge: According to the Charlotte Observer, "Charlotte's export of sewage sludge to rural South Carolina has made it a target of neighbors who say the stuff is making them sick. A University of North Carolina study published last week supported their claims. It found evidence that sludge used to fertilize farm fields can be unhealthy for people who live up to a mile away" (March 2013). Alfonso Wherry is one resident who wants sludge out of his neighborhood (video).
  
• Chicago's Brilliant Plan: Sludge Soccer Fields: According to a local publication in Hinsdale, Illinois (12/17), the Chicago metropolitan area has opted to replace a soccer field's soil with "biosolids" dried sewage sludge in several batches and re-sod. Apparently two other local soccer fields have also been sludged. Why? It's cheaper than "good, new black dirt."
  
• Biosolids or Biohazards?: Beyond Pesticides discusses the known concentrations of toxicants and heavy metals in sewage sludge in the Fall 2012 issue of Pesticides and You.
  
• Chappell Hill, Texas "Residents Say No Thanks to Sludge Deposits": According to the Brenham Banner-Press (10/3), "Residents here had a message for a company that wants to spread sewage sludge on rural property: Take it elsewhere. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) held a public meeting Tuesday on an application by K-3 Resources of Alvin to deposit sewer sludge on approximately 411 acres on FM 2447."
  
• "Human Waste Fertilizer Raises Health Concerns": According to the Morris Daily Herald in Grundy County, Illinois (9/25, updated 10/2), "There's quite a bit of national controversy about the practice of using biosolids as fertilizer on farmland, and some Channahon Township residents don't want it applied in the fields near their homes. 'What they are doing is making a toxic dump of our area. It's disgusting,' said Canal Road resident Pat Budd."
  

For more, see Sludge In the News.

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Videos and Testing of "Organic Compost"

Independent testing commissioned by the Food Rights Network found toxic contaminants in San Francisco's sewage sludge "compost". In the sewage sludge product that San Francisco's Public Utlity Commission was giving away to school and urban gardens as "organic compost" are contaminants with endocrine-disruptive properties including polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE), flame retardants, nonylphenol detergent breakdown products, and the antibacterial agent triclosan. The independent tests were conducted for the Food Rights Network by Dr. Robert C. Hale of the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences.
Watch the two videos below--from outstanding investigative reporting by the local CBS affiliate--which document the startling story of how San Francisco is violating its own precautionary principle law by dumping hazardous sludge on city gardens (and elsewhere):
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[TD]Anna Werner Investigates: Organic Compost or Toxic Sludge?



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[TD]Simon Perez reports on San Francisco's sludge giveaway.



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Sludge Science

Sewage sludge is contaminated with toxins and it is hazardous. The thousands of viruses, bacteria, heavy metals, persistent chemicals, human and animal drugs, carcinogens, endocrine disruptors and everything else that goes down the drain and into sewage plants ends up in the mountain of sewage sludge that the industry renames Biosolids and us increasingly trying to pawn off as "organic" fertilizer and compost. Today half of all sewage sludge is dumped on agricultural land, contaminating it with whatever it might contain. A growing body of scientific surveys and studies document the hazards of sludge. Here are some of them:

• Dr. Steve Wing of the University of North Carolina released a study in March 2013 involving neighbors of land where sewage sludge had been dumped -- "living in rural and semi*rural areas within approximately one mile of sewage sludge land application sites in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia." The study found that "over half of respondents attributed physical symptoms to application events."
  

• The Targeted National Sewage Sludge Survey was published by the EPA in 2009. EPA found that dozens of hazardous materials , not regulated and not required to be tested for, have been documented in each and every one--ALL--of the sludge samples EPA took around the USA.
  

• In 2008, Marie Kulick prepared an excellent overview titled Smart Guide on Sludge Use and Food Production for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
  

• The Environmental Working Group in 1998 issued two reports on sludge hazards:
  • Dumping Sewage Sludge On Organic Farms? Why USDA Should Just Say No, and
    
  • Routes of Exposure sewage sludge: EWG Research on Chemicals in sewage sludge.
    

Go to our Scientific Studies of Sewage Sludge article to find links to dozens of peer reviewed scientific studies in their entirety that examine and confirm the many hazards of sewage sludge.

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The "Biosolids" Scam

John Stauber, adviser to the Food Rights Network and co-author of the 1995 book "Toxic Sludge Is Good for You!," talks about the EPA PR campaign spinning toxic sludge into "beneficial biosolids."



Sewage sludge is the growing and continuous mountain of hazardous waste produced daily by wastewater treatment plants. The sewage sludge industry has created an Orwellian PR euphemism it uses in place of the words "sewage sludge"-- biosolids. The term Biosolids was chosen in a PR contest by the lobby association for U.S. sewage treatment plants, the Water Environment Federation (WEF).
The WEF, with the support of the Environmental Protection Agency, has since the 1990s been promoting spreading this hazardous waste on farms and gardens, after it proved too hazardous to landfill, incinerate or dump into the oceans. The sewage sludge lobby also includes major corporations such as Synagro, front groups such as the US Composting Council, publications including BioCycle magazine, and even the Rodale Institute.

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WARNING: Toxic Sludge Products

WARNING: BOYCOTT THESE PRODUCTS MARKETED FOR YOUR GARDEN & MADE FROM HAZARDOUS SLUDGE!
The following "organic" products are deceptively sold as fertilizers, soil amendments, and/or compost, but they are all made from sewage sludge:
Agresoil, All-Gro, Amend, Bay State Fertilizer, Chesapeake Sunshine, CompostT, ComPro, Dillo Dirt, EKO Compost, EarthBlends, EarthMate, Glacier Gold, Granulite, GroCo, Gromulch, Growers' Blend, Earthlife, Hou-Actinite, Landscapers' Advantage, MetroGro, Milorganite, Mine Mix, N-Viro BioBlend, N-Viro Soil, Nitrohumus, Nutri-Green, ORGRO, Oceangro, SilviGrow, SoilProâ„¢ Products Premium Compost, SoundGro, TAGRO, TOPGRO, Topper, Unity Fertilizer, WeCare Compost.
For more information on these and other products, visit our Toxic Sludge Products article.