Here's an update to this article. On April 7, I received the following email from someone at SFPUC:
I believe your post about Francesca suing the UK Guardian is factually inaccurate. A legal statement asking for the correction of inaccurate information in a publication is not a lawsuit. Since she is not in any way instituting a legal proceeding or filing a suit in court against the The Guardian she is not "suing" them. I would appreciate it if you could make that correction.
I'm getting conflicting information about the nature of Vietor's legal complaint. I haven't seen the letter myself. So for the time being, the only info I've got is that she took some kind of formal legal action, whatever that was.
I'm rather surprised about the first legal action to come out of the San Francisco sewage sludge giveaway program. After the city gave away its hazardous sludge to gardeners, calling it "organic biosolids compost," you'd think that the city itself (or its Public Utilities Commission - SFPUC for short - might be the subject of a lawsuit). But instead it's the Vice President of the SFPUC, Francesca Vietor, who sent a legal statement to The Guardian (a UK newspaper) asking them to change their reporting of the story.
As you may know, I'm familiar with the story. Here's my own fact check of the supposedly libelous article (below). |
Title: "Top US healthy-eating chef Alice Waters attacked for supporting fertiliser made of sewage that activists say contains toxins" TRUE
Alice Waters, the California chef who helped turn Americans on to seasonal, local and cage-free food, is under attack from some of her own followers who say she has championed fertiliser made of sewage.
DEPENDS. I think it's a little bit of a stretch to say that she has championed "fertiliser made of sewage." First of all, it was sludge, not raw sewage. But also, she has championed the role of the SFPUC, and they have championed sewage sludge as fertilizer. So has she championed sludge herself? That all depends on your interpretation of her words.
Activists from the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) are picketing Waters's fabled Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley today in protest at her failure to condem a fertiliser derived from sewage that, they say, contains industrial chemicals and heavy metals as well as human waste.
TRUE. Yes, the OCA protest happened. And I think this is an accurate characterization of the reason for the protest - Waters' "failure to condem a fertiliser derived from sewage." That's a much more accurate statement than the previous sentence.
The city of San Francisco, which prides itself on promoting greener living, had been giving away the fertiliser to home gardeners and local schools in the name of promoting healthy eating habits, but has now suspended the programme.
TRUE. Unless you want to contest whether the giveaways were to promote healthy eating habits. The fliers I saw for the events were all about being eco-friendly.
The fertiliser was made of sewage waste collected from San Francisco and eight other cities.
FALSE. The sludge came from San Francisco and eight other counties.
Local authorities labelled the bags as "organic biosolids compost", although federal government regulations say sewage sludge cannot be used for raising produce that is then labelled as organic.
TRUE.
The San Francisco giveaway was overseen by Francesca Vietor, an executive of the city's power company who also sits on the chef's foundation.
DEPENDS. This depends on how you interpret "overseen." I think Vietor wants us to believe that even though she's Vice President of SFPUC, she doesn't actually know much about what goes on there regarding the sludge giveaways or the safety of using sludge as fertilizer. The safety issue was brought to her attention in a letter February 10, which she is claiming she did not read (even though she responded to it). Thus, she says the first she heard of the safety problems with using sludge as fertilizer was an email she received in March of this year. That said, she may have had knowledge of the giveaways themselves (or involvement in them), even if she never questioned their safety. So is Vietor's intent to point out that she doesn't pay attention at her job and The Guardian should have known that instead of assuming that the Vice President of an organization would oversee what goes on there?
In a statement today, the Chez Panisse Foundation hit back at protesters, and said: "The Foundation looks forward to ensuring public review of the science on this matter and working with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commissison and other relevant stakeholders to insure that safe practices are followed."
TRUE.
Activists argue that Waters's stance amounts to greenwashing. Tests from around the country have shown that city sewage sludge routinely contains a slew of industrial and chemical toxins. The Environmental Protection Agency, however, requires only minimal testing on a routine basis of the sludge.
TRUE.
"It contains a myriad of toxins. Everything that goes down the drain that is pulled out of the water ends up in this mountain of sludge," said John Stauber, an adviser to the Organic Consumers Association. "They call it recycling but it's really greenwashing. Bagging it up and calling it organic compost and marketing it to school gardens is a tremendous fraud."
TRUE.
So there you go, Guardian. Next time don't assume that people actually do their jobs. Just because someone is Vice President of an organization doesn't mean she has any clue what the people under her are doing or whether their actions are harming the environment or public health. |
