Every time you flush your toilet or clean a paintbrush in your sink, you may be unwittingly contributing fertilizer used to grow the food in your pantry. Beginning in the early 1990s, millions of tons of potentially-toxic sewage sludge have been applied to millions of acres of America’s farmland as food crop fertilizer. Selling sewage sludge to farmers for use on cropland has been a favored government program for disposing of the unwanted byproducts from municipal wastewater treatment plants. But sewage sludge is anything but the benign fertilizer the Environmental Protection Agency says it is.
Sewage sludge includes anything that is flushed, poured, or dumped into our nation’s wastewater system–a vast, toxic mix of wastes collected from countless sources, from homes to chemical industries to hospitals. The sludge being spread on our crop fields is a dangerous stew of heavy metals, industrial compounds, viruses, bacteria, drug residues, and radioactive material. In fact, hundreds of people have fallen ill after being exposed to sewage sludge fertilizer–suffering such symptoms as respiratory distress, headaches, nausea, rashes, reproductive complications, cysts, and tumors.
The compounds added and formed during the sewage treatment process create an unknown and unpredictable product, one that should fall under the category of hazardous waste. Monitoring and regulating the content of these dangerous combinations has fallen terrifyingly short of protecting public health and the environment. Currently, no records are kept on the date or location of these lethal land applications, allowing these toxins to enter the soil of our nation’s cropland untraced.
Despite the apparent danger of using sludge in food production, federal regulations are woefully lax. The EPA monitors only nine of the thousands of pathogens commonly found in sludge; the agency rarely performs site inspections of sewage treatment plants; and it almost never inspects the farms that use sludge fertilizer. Regulations governing the use and disposal of sewage sludge have been criticized by both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Research Council, as well as numerous medical professionals, engineers, and activists.
CFS seeks to end the use of sewage sludge as an agricultural fertilizer–first through an immediate moratorium on its application to croplands. CFS strongly suggests that the government launch an independent investigation into all specific claims that sludge has caused harm to people, animals, and the environment.
Resources:
CFS and RILES presentation on sewage sludge in San Francisco’s compost give-away program
EPA Targeted National Sewage Sludge Survey
We here in central Virginia have been fighting the spreading of Sludge for several years now.
Our grass roots effort the NCATS blocked the spreading of over 4,000 acres in Nelson County.
We forced the local board of supervisors to create an ordinance to monitor how sludge would be applied on our lands in the county.
This truly is one of the greatest threats to the well being of our Planet and people we have ever seen. Direct Action must be taken to EDUCATE people as to the actual facts of this deadly poison that is being touted as a “free” fertilizer for farmers. The cost will be the ruining of farmlands for many generations to come. Plus the health of those exposed to this toxin.
Please do more to HIGHLIGHT the critical importance of this issue for public awareness on your website and various media postings.
Thank you for your continued efforts and God Bless one and all whom love and defend the sacred nature of all life here on Mother Earth!
[...] But Washington, D. C.-based Center for Food Safety (CFS) says that San Franciscans may be getting more than they bargain for when they load their [...]
I just bought hay from a local farmer…whom after selling me the hay told me he used such sludge for fertilizing his crops. Although, he told me that the EPA comes out to his farm often and regulates every aspect of his activity and tests the soil etc. I am now concerned about giving this hay to my pregnant goats. Should I be?