In McElmurray v. USDA, 2008 WL 516751 (S.D.Ga.), a U.S. court has strongly criticized American biosolids policy, and awarded compensation to a farmer whose fields were poisoned by sewage sludge. McElmurray sought federal disaster compensation, on the ground that Augusta, Georgia’s municipal sewage sludge had so contaminated his dairy farm that nothing could be grown on it; even the dairy cows died.
After five years of legal wrangling, Judge Alaimo agreed. Between 1979 and 1990, due to bad record keeping and a “grossly neglected” sewage plant, the McElmurray Farm had been heavily dosed with erratic sewage sludge. Sludge regulations in both the US and Canada assume well-run pre-treatment programs, which was “not the case” in Augusta.
As a result, more than 2,000 acres of the farm was unusable, containing random “hot zones”. Many samples showed high levels of cadmium, antimony, arsenic, selenium, thallium, PCBs, chlordane etc.. Several parts of the farm were more contaminated than Superfund sites.
Even more distressing than the carelessness of the Augusta sewage plant was the U.S. EPA’s apparent cover-up. Government sampling seemed designed to minimize the chance of finding contamination, taking samples only from surface soils and analyzing only composite samples, thus diluting high contaminant levels in particular locations.
“Other evidence of record calls into question the fairness and objectivity of the EPA’s opinions with respect to the sludge land application program…Senior EPA officials took extraordinary steps to quash scientific dissent and any questioning of EPA’s biosolids program.” One scientist, Dr. David Lewis, was forced to resign after 31 years at EPA “because his biosolids research was at odds with official EPA policy”. According to Lewis, “the EPA had politicized scientific research at the agency and utilized unreliable and fraudulent data to support the continuation of the [US] sludge land application program.”
In a chilling conclusion, Judge Alaimo commented that “experts have yet to reach a consensus as regarding the safety of land application of sewage sludge generally.”
Canada typically follows the lead of the US EPA, but it is not yet known whether any of these US problems are relevant in Canada.
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The recent Federal District Court ruling ordering the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture to pay a Georgia dairy farmer for no longer being able to grow food chain crops on his land because it was contaminated by sewage sludge is only the tip of the iceberg. Other dairy farms around the country have suffered sick or dead animals after feeding them fodder grown in sewage sludge.
A few years ago, a Missouri court found that sludge contained “substances and compounds, toxic to humans and animals, i.e., fluoride, cadmium, lead, mercury, iron, arsenic, aluminum, selenium and molybdenum.” Said substances and compounds migrated from the land to the neighboring dairy farm, “causing damage including diminished milk production, death of cows and loss of breeding opportunity. ”
In 2005 Raleigh, NC, had to appropriate $15 million dollars for costs associated with surface and groundwater pollution because of ” . . . improper disposal of sludge by over-application, as well as the improper disposal of sludge and raw waste by dumping in the Neuse River.
Sewage sludge has sickened (and killed) people and animals and contaminated surface and groundwater around the country. http://www.sludgevictims.com Recent research by the U. S. Geological Service found earthworms bioaccumulate toxic chemicals from sludge, which biomagnify in birds and other animals as the pollutants work their way up the food chain.
The US Environmental Protection Agency admits toxic industrial pollutants and drugs and pharmaceuticals are disposed of in public sewers. The wastewater treatment process partitions the chemicals either to the effluent discharged to surface waters or to the sewage sludge “biosolids” disposed of on land. Recent research has found fish and birds adversely impacted by chemicals including endocrine disrupters, in sewage effluent and sludge.
New technology is widely available to convert sewage sludge from a toxic/pathogenic environmental time bomb into a valuable and inexhaustable resource by drying it, and converting it into clean fuel. European countries are rapidly discontinuing land application and using sludge to produce biogas and other energy, thereby reducing dependence on expensive foreign oil and eliminating greenhouse gases and other air and water pollution.