La Vida Locavore - Biosolids

Shockingly, 1993's Science is Now Outdated

Jill Richardson — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 21:05:36 GMT

Oh, the good old days of 1993. That was the year that our family got its first computer with a color screen and a CD-ROM. The internet was still years away for us. Imagine what other developments science and technology have given us since then. And yet, the US is still using rules developed in 1993 to govern sludge that is applied to farmland where food is grown. Small wonder that scientists found that those rules are outdated. In fact, they were outdated long before now. The National Research Council said they were already outdated by 2002. But what does industry say? Roughly: "Nothing to see here. Move along." No, these are definitely not the droids you're looking for.

But when their analyses included noroviruses, the yearly risk for infection via inhalation rose dramatically, to at least 1 in 1,000. Noroviruses cause more than half of all foodborne gastroenteritis outbreaks in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This result, says Peccia, shows that the biosolids treatments that eliminate enteroviruses or Salmonella, or reduce them to levels the government deems acceptable, can leave behind potentially harmful levels of emerging pathogens. Unfortunately, very few epidemiological studies have looked at ties between infections and biosolids, Peccia says. As a result, he and his colleagues don't make firm recommendations on how to lower the risks. Still, Peccia says that a logical response from EPA would be to mandate that sewage sludge processors use the best available treatments, which heat sludge to effectively pasteurize it, and reduce the levels of pathogens like norovirus, he says.
This study demonstrates that testing for pathogens is "behind the times," says Michael Hansen, senior scientist with the nonprofit Consumers Union. EPA's ignoring emerging pathogens could result in underestimating risk by orders of magnitude, he says. However, Hansen worries even more about sewage sludge's potential for harboring toxic industrial chemicals like flame retardants, as well as pharmaceuticals excreted from the body, such as birth control drugs and antibiotics. These substances may cause illness if they are absorbed by crops and enter the food supply, he says, but none are being tested for or removed from sludge. [emphasis mine]

As for the lack of data on sludge and disease? The 2002 report from the National Research Council said the same thing. Let's hope the Obama EPA takes this more seriously than the Bush EPA did.

Why is the Monterey Bay Aquarium Greenwashing Sewage Sludge?

Jill Richardson — Thu, 19 May 2011 16:29:43 GMT

Today, the nation's major sustainable food writers and bloggers will converge on Monterey, CA for an incredible invite-only sustainable food conference. The event, Monterey Bay Aquarium's Cooking for Solutions, which those who attend say is spectacular, has a new sponsor this year: Kellogg Garden Products. Yes, that Kellogg Garden Products. The very same company that has contaminated "organic" school gardens in Los Angeles with sewage sludge. The company's Chief Sustainability Officer, Kathy Kellogg Johnson, has a knack for befriending "green" organizations and using them to promote her toxic, misleadingly labeled products to unsuspecting gardeners. In this case, she's listed as a "Silver Sponsor." How much did her company pay to give her such a nice platform, sitting on a panel with Grist's sustainable food writer Tom Philpott and telling an all-media audience about the sustainability of Kellogg Garden Products?
Last week, I wrote to Monterey Bay Aquarium, informing them that Kellogg Garden Products sells compost made with sewage sludge, with the slogan "Quality organics since 1925" on the label. After a few brief replies and a little prodding, here is the reply I received from Alison Barratt on Friday, May 13:

Dear Jill,
We were not actually aware of these allegations until you raised them. We met Kellogg at the EMA awards last year, and know that EMA vets all of its associates very carefully. They were independently invited to be a sponsor and speaker at the event. We do not offer a place on our panels to sponsors; we look for speakers with an interesting story to tell, and we believe this is an interesting story.
Having spoken at length with Kellogg yesterday regarding your allegations, we are perfectly comfortable with our decision to invite Kathy Kellogg Johnson to the event, and to have them as a sponsor.
Our event is about highlighting good work that companies and individuals are doing and no company will ever claim to be perfect, or totally sustainable, but that doesn't mean they don't have something unique to share, or valuable to our audience. This event is not about marketing companies or products, it's about education and taking us towards solutions.
I am afraid on this issue we will have to agree to disagree and respectfully decline your request to attend.
Kind regards,
Alison

It's a good thing I was not drinking anything when I read this, because I would have certainly spit it out. She checked the facts by asking Kathy Kellogg Johnson? Why not also go ask BP if it is safe for them to drill in the Gulf? This shows the value of Kellogg's sponsorship of the EMA (Environmental Media Association), as even a champion of sustainability like the Monterey Bay Aquarium did not question whether EMA's sponsors were truly sustainable or not. Here is my reply:

Hello Alison,
It's interesting you bring up the EMA and how they vet their associates carefully. Actually, unfortunately, that is not the case. Please see this signed, notarized affidavit from the LA school district's garden advisor who worked with the EMA on their garden program, which Kellogg sponsored, exposing the lies of Debbie Levin, EMA President, about Kellogg and sewage sludge. You can find the whole story here.
I am attaching test results that show findings of 65.97 TEQ of dioxins and furans in Kellogg's product Amend. Unfortunately, this is legal. Despite urging from the Natural Resources Defense Council, the EPA has declined to regulate dioxins in sewage sludge (more here). Kellogg Amend identifies its ingredients as "Blended and screened forest products, composted rice hulls, compost, poultry manure, gypsum." It does not identify its contents as sewage sludge. Yet it is well documented that the product DOES contain sewage sludge. Several gardeners I know personally have purchased and used Amend and other Kellogg products made with sludge, thinking they were organic. When they found out they had in fact used sewage sludge, which is NOT organic, in their gardens, and quite possibly exposed themselves to dioxins in the process, they were extremely upset. This is very deceptive on the part of Kellogg, to sell a toxic product that so misrepresents itself to consumers.
Jill

I've received no reply from Alison or from anyone else at Monterey Bay Aquarium. Now, I understand why Kellogg wants to hoodwink us all into buying their products. And boy howdy, do they try! Check out this video about Kellogg's Amend from Kellogg's website, and compare it to this video in which activist John Stauber tells the truth about Kellogg's Amend. But why is the Monterey Bay Aquarium letting them?

In my years as a sustainable food advocate, I've always relied on Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program for sound science and unwavering dedication to saving our oceans. It is precisely because Monterey Bay Aquarium is so good that its inclusion of Kellogg in its program is so dangerous. There are plenty of sold-out environmental organizations out there who partner with all kinds of unethical corporations, but who would think to question the Monterey Bay Aquarium? With their long and wonderful history of providing trustworthy sustainable seafood recommendations, why would anyone expect them to feature anyone but the best at their sustainable food event?

I expect and hope that the journalists present will be more on top of things than the aquarium, and I plan to follow the conference via Twitter (#CFS11). I'll be tweeting at @FoodRightsNtwrk, and I look forward to seeing what those in attendance have to say, including:
Paula Crossfield (@civileater), Clare Leschin-Hoar (@c_leschin), Tom Laskawy (@tlaskawy), Bonnie Powell (@ethicurean), Tom Philpott (@tomphilpott), and Barry Estabrook (@Barry_Estabrook).And you can follow the aquarium as well: Seafood Watch (@SeafoodWatch), Monterey Bay Aquarium (MontereyAq), and Communications Director Ken Peterson (@aquaken).

And the Razzie goes to Norman Lear's EMA for Exposing Kids to Sewage Sludge and Not Coming Clean

Jill Richardson — Mon, 09 May 2011 04:51:12 GMT

For a non-actress surrounded by movie stars, Debbie Levin, President of the Environmental Media Association (EMA) - an organization founded by Norman Lear - is putting on quite a performance of her own. Too bad it's more likely to win her a fraud charge than an Oscar, based on her May 6, 2011 letter to her Board provided to the Food Rights Network by a source inside EMA.
Over the past month, Levin has been confronted with ample evidence that the group she runs exposed school children (not to mention the Hollywood celebrities that serve on the group's board) to toxic sewage sludge. In 2009, EMA began a partnership with several Los Angeles schools, securing the donation of thousands of dollars in compost and soil amendment products from Kellogg Garden Products for the schools' organic gardens soon thereafter. In a sworn affidavit, former L.A. Unified School District garden advisor Mud Baron said that he informed Levin early on and repeatedly that Kellogg uses sewage sludge in many of its products, and sewage sludge is illegal for use in organic gardens. Yet on Friday, May 6, she emailed the board a message that reads, in part:

It's unfortunate in the midst of this great success, some can try to find controversy where none exists. The standards of the gardening program and our relationship with Kellogg Garden Products have been called into question. A San Francisco-based blogger posted a story last week claiming that Kellogg's nonorganic materials were being used in school garden programs. Following that, an environmental blog picked up the story and expanded upon it by questioning our relationship with Kellogg since the company sells products that aren't considered environmentally correct. Let me walk you through some of the facts:
The stories claim that nonorganic materials were used at school sites. This is not accurate. Schools only have access to Kellogg organic materials. This misconception may come from the fact that shortly after our program started two years ago, one participating school reached out directly to Kellogg and obtained mulch that is not considered organic. We regret that one school acted on its own in securing nonorganic materials...

Unfortunately for Levin, this is contradicted by strong evidence. Note how she refers only to products that were "not considered organic," thus avoiding the core issue of sewage sludge. Sewage sludge can contain a wide range of thousands of contaminants, from dioxins to heavy metals and more. Levin also never identifies the publications that wrote about EMA's sludge problem or provides links, so that her board can read them and evaluate them. (The first piece she refers to appeared on SFGate on April 25 and the second appeared on Mother Jones on April 27.)

On January 4, 2010, an email from EMA went to all of the garden teachers for the Los Angeles schools that EMA had "adopted." The email, with the subject "Friendly Reminder: Kellogg Donation Requests," read in part:

As you all know, we have formed a partnership with Kellogg Garden Products and they have generously agreed to provide in-kind donation to your garden's(sic). Now all we need is your requests!
I have attached a revised list of items Kellogg has offered to donate. Please send me your requests at your earliest convenience and I will pass them along to Kellogg.

EMA's email gave the schools an order form with Kellogg's sewage sludge products - Gromulch, Amend, Nitrohumus, and Topper - right at the top of the list of products the organic gardens could get for free with no indication to the schools that these products contained sewage sludge and are barred in organic gardens. (See a photo of the form here.) Additionally, an email from Kellogg Garden Products, obtained by the Food Rights Network, shows that 192 bags of sewage sludge product (Gromulch) were provided in one 2010 order. (See the spreadsheet here.)

Despite this proof from within EMA's own records, Levin continues in her email to the EMA board:

The story claims that nonorganic materials were used in a school garden because a photo available on the Internet shows an EMA Young Hollywood Board Member posing with kids next to a bag of nonorganic materials. The first half of the statement is not accurate-nonorganic materials were not used in the photographed garden. The latter part of the statement-that a bag of the nonorganic material is visible in an EMA photo-is accurate. To be candid, these were props for photos and we just didn't catch it (not knowing the names of any nonorganic products so it didn't register). We have developed an internal list of Standards for EMA School Gardens that will ensure that no such mistake is made going forward. Our gardens only use Kellogg organic materials and we'll ensure that promotional photos reflect it.

Here, Levin makes it sound like the photos showing Kellogg's Amend brand sewage sludge product (as depicted in the photo below with Rosario Dawson) were a one-time accident, claiming the Kellogg products were posed there for the photos and not used. She does not account for other photos that show empty bags of Kellogg sludge compost (likely Gromulch or Amend), such as the one below taken at Carson High School.

Rosario Dawson gardening at a school next to a bag of Kellogg's Amend.

Emmanuelle Chriqui gardening with children at Carson Senior High School, with an empty bag of Kellogg sludge compost.

Emmanuelle Chriqui with Debbie Levin, Kathy Kellogg Johnson, and students at Carson Senior High School with a bag of Kellogg's sludge-based product Gromulch.

Closeup of Chriqui and Gromulch. This photo was downloaded from Chriqui's website.

The garden at Westminster Avenue Elementary School, with an open bag of Kellogg's Amend.

Twilight star Rachelle Lefevre at an EMA event at Venice High School on May 26, 2010 with Kellogg Amend on the far right of the photograph.

Olivia Wilde at the same event, with a bag of Kellogg's Amend at her feet.

Levin's lies are just the latest in a string of them she has dished out since the sludge issue was first called out by the Center for Media & Democracy's Food Rights Network in a letter to EMA founder Norman Lear and her on March 30 of this year. She did not reply until April 21. You can read the correspondence between EMA and the Center for Media and Democracy and others here. Her first email, on April 21, sidestepped the sludge issue entirely. However, after the photo of Amend with Dawson was pointed out, she told Mother Jones that "no Kellogg Amend was ever actually applied to EMA's gardens (though one school may have inadvertently ordered a different sludge-based product)." ) There is no record that Helen Bernstein High School, which ordered the sludge based Gromulch, did not contaminate its organic gardens with the bags of sewage sludge products.

After Mud Baron's affidavit contradicting Levin's claims that no sewage sludge was used was made public in a post on this blog May 3, Levin received the following email from Cornucopia Institute (an organic watchdog organization) co-founder Mark Kastel. Kastel wrote to her, saying:

I have been aware of, and have respected, your work for some time. However, recently I learned about your association with, and promotion of, a company marketing compost that's derived from municipal sewage sludge.
Because I think you are promoting some very positive, and truly organic activities, I wanted to make sure you knew that the federal organic standards explicitly prohibit using sewage sludge as a soil amendment.
As an organic industry watchdog we feel it is really important that all of us in this movement protect the integrity of the organic label and the language we use to communicate/promote it to others.
Maybe you have already broken ties with these suppliers but if not I am certainly going to encourage you to do so on an expedited basis.
Please let me know what the status of this is.

Levin responded to Kastel May 4, saying:

We only use organic products (OMRI) in our program. We're investigating the issue of sludge but have not used that in our program. As always, EMA works with the sustainable products in companies that support our programs.

Kastel wrote back, also on May 4:

Dear Debbie,
I appreciate your prompt response. However, I'm a bit confused.
I have read this article (link below) by Jill Richardson? ...She reports that sludge has gone from EMA onto the organic LA school gardens:
http://my.firedoglake.com/jillrichardson/2011/05/03/lies-dioxins-sewage-sludge-hollywood-celebs-and-school-gardens/
"Baron says he continually raised the issue of sewage sludge in Kellogg products, but Levin responded "We've been doing our projects for 20 years, we know what we are doing." Yet order records from the schools betray that one high school ordered 192 bags of Gromulch, made with sludge, in 2010 alone. Baron adds that the resource-strapped schools shared the donations they received from Kellogg, so the 384 cubic feet of Gromulch may be split among several schools' gardens."
I really appreciate your take on this? If this article is false or inaccurate, the organic community needs to know that!
Thanks in advance,
Mark

To date, Levin has not replied to Kastel, but instead she repeated her deceptive spin to the Board of EMA, which has fiduciary responsibilities to ensure that its spokesperson is not misleading the public, which Debbie Levin clearly is. Sewage sludge products were plainly used at the organic gardens EMA adopted and supplied with Kellogg donations. A picture is worth a thousand words and numerous pieces of photographic evidence document that Levin is lying to her Board, to the stars, to the school kids and the world at large about the gardens.

Since EMA brought Kellogg on as a sponsor in 2009 and proceeded to contaminate the "organic" gardens with sewage sludge products, the gardens have violated USDA's organic standards. At one point last month, EMA asserted the gardens were "never claimed to be organic" and even deleted the word "organic" from its online donation form and description of the gardens. But that does not change the fact that EMA has solicited and received tax deductible donations for its "organic" garden program over the past two years, while it steadfastly partnered with a sewage sludge company and urged the organic school gardens to order sewage sludge products from Kellogg, which in turn provided hundreds of cubic feet of the sludge-based materials while promoting its sludge products at several EMA events, including at the 2010 EMA Awards.

Levin even posed with Kathy Kellogg Johnson, Kellogg's - get this - Chief Sustainability Officer, and a bag of Kellogg's sewage sludge material, and she disregarded concerns of the schools' gardener about Kellogg's use of sewage sludge. Even after being told about the sludge again this March, EMA had an event at a school garden last month with a Kellogg poster promoting Gromulch, and its celebrities continue to promote the gardens as "organic," despite the gardens being contaminated by sewage sludge products. This looks like fraud and more at this point. Yet, when pressed to come clean, clean up the gardens, and dump the corporation that has contaminated the gardens with EMA, Levin has responded by lying to the organization's board and lying to the organic community.

EMA's contamination of school gardens, Levin's false claims and cover up, all beg the question: where are Lyn and Norman Lear in this growing scandal and embarrassment for the organization Norman founded over 20 years ago? He and Lyn are on the board, but thus far they have been silent, allowing Levin to handle the controversy. Could it be because they believe her lies?

That is terrible and not because of the black eye it is giving the Lears and other Hollywood celebs. It's terrible because Lear's organization has exposed poor kids in organic school gardens to a toxic stew. EMA won't fess up, and its real commitment is obviously to Kellogg Garden Products and their money. EMA is clearly 'greenwashing' what author John Stauber calls "the biggest toxic scam in America. Bagging sewage sludge, labeling it compost and selling it to duped gardeners. Across America this spring millions of people are unwittingly turning their home and school gardens into dumps for industrial, medical and home sewage waste," as Stauber points out in this video expose of Kellogg's Amend.

Lisa Graves, the executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, added "Levin needs to quit covering for Kellogg and denounce Kellogg's contamination of the kids' gardens and its use of young celebrities to unwittingly promote its sewage sludge products and brand. Mr. and Mrs. Lear should insist that EMA immediately notify the schools, school children, and their parents, and EMA's donors who supported the organic school gardens that Kellogg's sludge products have contaminated." She added that "EMA must remediate the gardens and pledge not to partner with any company that deceptively sells sewage sludge products as 'quality organics,' like Kellogg," and she underscored that "No corporate donor's financial support is worth exposing these children to the hazardous substances in sewage sludge in what were supposed to be 'organic' gardens, before EMA hooked up with a sludge peddler."

Jill Richardson is a Fellow at the Center for Media and Democracy.

I Never Promised You an Organic Garden

Jill Richardson — Tue, 03 May 2011 19:26:09 GMT

A story has been developing over the past month involving lies, toxic sludge, Hollywood celebrities, and poor, inner city school children. It centers around the Environmental Media Association (EMA), a group of environmentally conscious Hollywood celebs, and the "organic" school gardens they've been volunteering at for the past past couple years. Stars like Rosario Dawson, Amy Smart, Emmanuelle Chriqui, and Nicole Ritchie have generously adopted Los Angeles schools, visiting the schools and helping the children garden. What the celebs didn't know is that their organization's corporate donor - Kellogg Garden Products - sells both organic compost and soil amendments and ones made from sewage sludge. Seventy percent of Kellogg's business is products made from sewage sludge. Sewage sludge is not allowed on organic farms and gardens.

In late March, the Center for Media & Democracy (CMD) wrote to EMA, alerting them that Kellogg products contain sludge, which may jeopardize the safety and the organic status of the gardens. As a result of the letter, John Stauber, founder of CMD, then met with Ed Begley, Jr., famous environmentalist and EMA board member, who was concerned about the possibility that sludge was used on the gardens.

Following that meeting, a reply came back from EMA's President, Debbie Levin, who has been called "Hollywood's Conscience," asking CMD to stop communicating with Ed Begley, Jr. and to call off its public campaign against the use of Kellogg products on the LA school gardens. She asserted that her organization never claimed the gardens were organic. Then, in the next week, EMA removed the word "organic" from its webpage about its school garden program... but left it in on some pages. (See screenshots here) EMA refers to the gardens as "organic" in a fundraising form, leading donors to believe they are contributing to organic school gardens. Ironically, in 2003, EMA gave an award to King of the Hill for its episode titled "I Never Promised You an Organic Garden." Talk about foreshadowing.

SFGate and Mother Jones each wrote articles on this story, published a few days after Levin's initial email reply. The Mother Jones piece features a picture of Rosario Dawson gardening with children, with a bag of Kellogg's Amend (made from sewage sludge and contaminated with dioxins and other hazardous material) behind them. The article says:

"This was one of those unfortunate weird things," says EMA president Debbie Levin, who hadn't known anything about Amend before the shoot. Amend, she later learned, is not approved for organic farming because it's made from municipal sewage sludge.

And

So what to do if you're a home gardener who wants compost without the sewage? Try checking the website of the Organic Materials Review Institute, which vets agricultural products used by certified organic farmers. That's the preferred approach of Levin, who stresses that no Kellogg Amend was ever actually applied to EMA's gardens (though one school may have inadvertently ordered a different sludge-based product). "Everything was according to what we asked for," she says. "We use the organic stuff."

That much is old news. According to Levin, she and EMA were unaware that Kellogg products contained sludge, but not to worry because the products in the photos were never used. (Does that mean the bags of Amend that appear in many pictures of the school gardens were brought in for use as props in photo ops and then removed? Even if that were the case, it's unfortunate that an environmental organization is giving that sort of free publicity to an environmentally unsound product like Amend.)

Here's the new part of the story. Mud Baron, a Master Gardener who worked for the LA Unified School District's garden program from 2006 to 2011, has come forward, with a signed, notarized affidavit, alleging that he informed Levin and others at EMA that some Kellogg products contained sewage sludge, which is not permissible on organic gardens, as early as summer 2009. (See his statement here.) Levin repeatedly assured him that all of the products donated from Kellogg would be organic.

Baron also says he questioned the appropriateness of an environmental group promoting a corporation that sold sewage sludge as "compost," and those concerns were ignored and overruled as well. (Kellogg products identify the sewage sludge only as "compost" on product labels. The packages use the word "organic," misleading some gardeners that they are appropriate to use on organic gardens.)

Baron says he continually raised the issue of sewage sludge in Kellogg products, but Levin responded "We've been doing our projects for 20 years, we know what we are doing." Yet order records from the schools betray that one high school ordered 192 bags of Gromulch, made with sludge, in 2010 alone. Baron adds that the resource-strapped schools shared the donations they received from Kellogg, so the 384 cubic feet of Gromulch may be split among several schools' gardens. And worse, a 2010 test by San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission found dangerously high levels of cancer-causing dioxins in Kellogg's Amend. (Gromulch was not tested.)

Thus far, the response to CMD's Food Rights Network) from EMA's Executive Director Greg Baldwin is that in the future, EMA will ensure that only organic (OMRI-listed) products are used in the school gardens. Furthermore, they will no longer refer to the gardens as organic.

There is no evidence that EMA has notified the LA Unified School District, the schools, the children, the children's parents, the celebrities who were promoting the school gardens, the donors who provided the funding for the gardens while believing they were organic, or all of EMA's board members that the school gardens are not organic and may contain sewage sludge from Kellogg Garden Products. When asked in an email, Levin refused to answer whether these steps were taken yet or not.

Lisa Graves, executive director of CMD, says, "We are demanding that EMA end the greenwashing now, and end its relationship with Kellogg and any other organization that refuses to clearly label its products as 'derived from sewage sludge.' We are also asking that EMA notify the children, the schools, and the donors who contributed money for the "organic" gardens. Last, EMA must remediate the gardens that have been contaminated."

Your move, EMA.

Disclosure: I am being paid for my work on this by the Center for Media & Democracy

Happy International Compost Awareness Week!

Jill Richardson — Sun, 01 May 2011 22:29:23 GMT

Guess what today is? You might guess May Day and, well, you'd be right. But it's also the first day of International Compost Awareness Week! Woohoo! And... you lucky reader of this blog you... yours truly has been hired by the Center for Media and Democracy to blog about it.

To start out our celebration, unfortunately, I have a very sad story to share. You see, yesterday I went to help out in a garden in San Diego. The garden belongs to a man who has undergone a series of surgeries in the past year and while he and his wife love the fresh, homegrown food, he's limited physically as he recovers. So I go over there every now and again to help him out. Yesterday I brought over a bunch of tomatoes, melons, and squash seedlings to plant and, as I entered the garden, I stopped dead in my tracks.

This garden is mostly organic. It's an attempt at biointensive gardening, as described by John Jeavons in his book How to Grow More Vegetables... But there, next to the patch where we were planting the peppers, was a half-full open bag of Kellogg's Amend.

The man whose garden this is, he's a smart guy. We talk a lot, and he's pretty aware of what he's doing in his garden. He probably read the label before purchasing Amend. What's in it? The label says "Ingredients: Blended and screened forest products, composted rice hulls, compost, poultry manure, gypsum." It also says "Quality Organics since 1925." The bag tells how the product should be used in vegetable gardens, and how it is ideal for loosening up clay soil. What it doesn't say is that it's actually made from Los Angeles sewage sludge. You would have no way of knowing that if you read the label. And if you didn't know to look for the term "OMRI Listed" (which means that a product is suitable for organic agriculture) you might think the product is organic.

"Oh god," I said. I told him that Amend was made from sewage sludge. He said the nursery he got it from recommended the product, and he used half the bag on his citrus trees. He was upset that it was made from sewage sludge, and that he had no way of knowing that before buying it. He was upset that he has no way of knowing what the hell he's put on his citrus trees. Sewage sludge can have any number of contaminants in it (and often does). Some, like heavy metals, flame retardants, nanosilver, and certain pharmaceuticals, are almost universally found in sewage sludge, even the treated stuff approved to be used in gardens and farms. Other contaminants, including dioxins, furans, pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, phthalates, endotoxins, and more, are only found some of the time... but since they aren't regulated, a gardener has no way of knowing if a bag of Amend contains them or not. Only 10 heavy metals, salmonella, and fecal coliform are regulated in the most strictly regulated sewage sludge, which is called Class A biosolids.

Ironically, this nasty product, Amend has a very big link to International Compost Awareness Week. International Compost Awareness Week (ICAW, for short) is being put on by the US Composting Council. USCC's board is dominated by companies that sell sewage sludge as "compost," companies like Synagro, A1 Organics, ERTH Products, and others. One of their board members, Jeff Ziegenbein, works for the Inland Empire Utilities Agency and the Inland Empire Regional Composting Authority. The latter organization operates a large sewage sludge composting plant that takes sewage sludge from both Los Angeles and the Inland Empire, composts it, and then sells it to Kellogg Garden Products, the maker of Amend and other sludge-based products, Gromulch, Topper, and Nitrohumus. And if you're a gardener in Southern California, then lucky you! You can find these products for about $5.97 per 2 cubic foot bag in your local gardening stores! And since they don't say "sewage sludge" or even the euphemism "biosolids" anywhere on the bag, you might buy them without ever knowing what's in them.

So happy International Compost Awareness Week, Jeff Ziegenbein. This week, I will be doing my best to help promote awareness of WHAT'S IN COMMERCIALLY SOLD COMPOST PRODUCTS so that unsuspecting gardeners like my friend don't accidentally buy your sludge.

I Dare You: Put Sewage Sludge in Your Mouth

Jill Richardson — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 22:09:26 GMT

A new Washington Post piece by Darryl Fears claims sewage sludge is safe enough to put in your mouth. Specifically, the statement was made about "Class A Biosolids," the treated sewage sludge (renamed "biosolids" to make it sound less unpleasant) that has regulated amounts of 10 heavy metals, salmonella, and fecal coliform.

What else might you find in sewage sludge? Well... Alkylphenols and alkylphenol ethoxylates, dioxins and furans, flame retardants, heavy metals (including some that are not regulated), hormones, pesticides, perfluorinated compounds, pharmaceuticals, phthalates, polycyclic aromatic hydrogens, steroids, and more... Still wanna put that in your mouth?

Fears was not advocating that anyone put sewage sludge in their mouths... at least, not directly. The article was instead about how sludge should be used as fertilizer for food crops... which people would then put in their mouths.

For the past year, on and off, I've been working with the Center for Media & Democracy's Food Rights Network, a group that opposes the use of sewage sludge as fertilizer on food crops. So, full disclosure, I've been getting paid to research the hell out of sewage sludge and to write about it. I've even been paid to go to my local Home Depot and buy three bags of sludge compost to send samples to a lab for testing. And let me tell you... if the long list of sludge contaminants and the EPA's own record of what they found in sewage sludge doesn't scare you off of using sludge as fertilizer, the smell of it will. It's not a poop smell - it's a chemical smell. An incredibly volatile, potent one.

The question is, of course, what are you putting in your mouth when you eat food grown in sludge? And the answers are: "We don't know" and "That depends." We don't know because it's almost entirely unregulated and because there are an awful lot of chemicals out there that just haven't been studied well enough to have the answers. Additionally, once you finish studying each individual chemical, then you'd have to study all of the combinations to see what happens when you mix them together in a toxic goop and apply them to farms and gardens. And it depends because each batch of sewage sludge is different, based on which households, hospitals, and industries are contributing to the waste stream and what they've put down the drain that particular day or week.

For farmer Andy McElmurray, it depended that a Nutrasweet plant was dumping thallium (rat poison) - an unregulated contaminant in sewage sludge - into the waste stream. The thallium went from the sludge applied to his soil, to his forage crops, to his cows, and all the way to the milk he sold to grocery stores. He only found out about the hazards of sludge after an extensive investigation into why his cows were dropping dead one after the other. McElmurray and his dad both got sick from working around sludge, and the farm went out of business. Dairying isn't very profitable when your cows are all dead.

Fears notes the sludge industry's favorite talking point: We have all of this human waste, and what are we going to do with it? Well, what should we do with pesticides, perfluorinated compounds, and flame retardants? I don't know. I don't think there's a good answer. In the case of some of the most common flame retardants (PBDEs), the world's answer was to ban them in the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. I think that's a step in the right direction. The problem is that "persistent" refers to the fact that this stuff doesn't break down. The answers to the sludge problem are upstream ones. We shouldn't make such toxic substances if we don't have a way to dispose of them. So, sure, it's a problem to figure out where to put all of the sewage sludge. But lying that it's safe and then selling it to unsuspecting gardeners ain't the answer.

Another favorite sludge talking point in the article is that manure, including human poop, is "the world's original fertilizer." And, sure, the Chinese were famous for using night soil as fertilizer (one reason why you don't see salads on the menu at Chinese restaurants... all the veggies are cooked in Chinese cuisine). But the pre-industrial Chinese were not manufacturing and mixing toxic chemicals in with their night soil.

So go ahead, Darryl Fears, put some class A biosolids in your mouth. Or, let's make it more pleasant... how about a carrot grown in them? Still wanna eat that?

LVL Contest: Make Your Own Sewage Sludge Jingle!

Jill Richardson — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 07:59:43 GMT

Recall that activists have interfered with San Francisco's sewage sludge compost give-away program that was giving free "organic compost" to city residents until the program was ended this past March. Since then, the city made good on its promise to release test results showing which contaminants - if any - were found in the sludge compost, and at what concentrations. Shortly after they released their results, the newly-formed Food Rights Network (FRN) released its own data, showing that SF's sludge compost DID have some nasty stuff in it - namely, PBDEs, nonylphenols, and triclosan. (San Francisco's tests didn't test for those things.) When FRN released its test results and the story was picked up by CBS news, it was quite embarrassing for San Francisco.

Now, apparently, it's San Francisco's turn at bat. So what are they doing? PR, of course. They have a new jingle to remind people what goes down the toilet and what doesn't so that the resulting sewage sludge is clean and can be used as a fertilizer. "When it comes to your toilet: Remember 3 Ps - Poop, Paper and Pee - Give it to Me!" Catchy, huh?

Here's the thing... it's not the condoms and cotton swabs going down the toilet that are really the problem, when it comes to using sewage sludge as fertilizer. It's the industrial waste, hospital waste, and even household waste - including the various chemicals that humans excrete. For example, check out this nice list of pharmaceuticals frequently found in sewage sludge. A few of them can be traced to use in livestock, but most are human drugs. Sometimes, pharmaceuticals even make their way all the way into drinking water. I've spent the last week reading countless studies about how pharmaceuticals biodegrade and what happens to them in the environment. Quite often, drugs go right through humans and come out the other end. So do an awful lot of other chemicals. If you want data and numbers check out this CDC report. They measure human exposure to chemicals by what they find in our urine.

At any rate, I find this sewage jingle so entertaining, I'll mail a book about sustainable food (winner's choice of several - I'll give you a list of what I've got) to whoever can come up with the best jingle about using sewage sludge as fertilizer for food crops. If you can write a jingle, paste it in the comments here. I'll post a diary with all of the entries a week from today and let people vote on the winner. Multiple entries are allowed - the more, the better.

Full disclosure: I am being paid to write about sewage sludge by the Center for Media & Democracy. However, this contest is my own idea and my own work, independent of the work I am being paid to do.

Sewage Sludge in the New York Times!

Jill Richardson — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:27:24 GMT

This is rare. Sewage sludge is getting the light of day in a major paper. Check out "Biosolids Tracking Efforts a Jumble of Research With No Clear Answers." For example:

In Decatur, Ala., chemical companies released perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) -- the stuff that makes up nonstick cookware and has been linked to thyroid defects in pregnant women and to cancer in wastewater treatment plant workers -- into the sewage system over a period of decades.
The local wastewater treatment plant, Decatur Utilities, collected sludge, which was then sprayed onto grazing lands over a period of 12 years. Tests in 2009 showed that the fields -- a grazing ground for cattle -- contained PFOA and PFOS. Both chemicals are highly persistent in the environment and accumulate in the body.

But then read the next paragraph:

Tests showed that other types of perfluorinated compounds were also present, but EPA does not have maximum safety limits for these, said Roberts. "We wouldn't participate if there wasn't some cause for concern," she said of continuing tests of water and people's blood in the region.

OK, wait - what? Toxic persistent chemicals were released into the environment, onto farm fields, and then said there was no cause for concern? And the justification is that the EPA doesn't have any maximum limit for how much of that toxic, persistent chemical you can have in sludge applied to land? Think about that. I'm sorry but just because the law was followed doesn't mean there's no risk to the environment and human health.

You've really got to read all four pages of the article to get the full story. If you just stop on page 2, you might get the impression that scientists think sludge is fine. Then again, if you can think for yourself, you might think that it's all really fucked up for any scientist to be okay with spreading sludge on land. The story tries to be "balanced" and unbiased. But it ends up with paragraphs like this one:

Nearly all scientists agree that sewage sludge can be beneficial if it is uncontaminated, as it is a rich source of phosphorus and nitrogen. It has two components -- bacteria naturally present in organic matter, which can be somewhat removed depending on how the sludge is processed; and heavy metals and chemicals such as any of the 11 flame retardants, 72 pharmaceuticals, 28 metals, 25 steroids and hormones, and others that EPA tested for in its 2009 national sludge survey. It can also contain chemicals that no one is looking for, any one of the 80,000 that are made in the United States.

Okay, so what they are saying is that it would be fine if it was uncontaminated, except it's TOTALLY contaminated with god knows what.

And check this out:

About 55 percent of sludge is applied in the United States on primarily grazing land. It is a multimillion-dollar industry in which utilities pay applier companies like Synagro to take the stuff and spray it on farmland as a potent fertilizer. They save money by avoiding costs of land filling or incineration. The farmer pays little or nothing.

There ya go. That's why they are doing it. Money. Not because it's safe. It's money. The article also tells about how little research there is on safety and any health harm caused by land application of sewage sludge, and the close ties between the sewage industry and government regulators. And surprise, surprise, there's "heavy lobbying" involved.

Sewage Sludge: "It'll Make Your Penis Smaller, But At Least You Won't Be Depressed"

Jill Richardson — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 21:01:10 GMT

That's my new idea for a slogan advertising food grown in sewage sludge. As I've noted many times, I've been researching sewage sludge and the many chemicals commonly found in it. One that has been found in San Francisco's sewage sludge and in the sludge compost it gave out is DEHP, a phthalate blamed for making boys penises smaller if they are exposed prenatally. And another chemical commonly found in sewage sludge, fluoxetine is the active ingredient in Prozac. Still want to grow your food in this stuff?

More in the San Francisco Sludge Story

Jill Richardson — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 05:15:47 GMT

Today was quite a day in the San Francisco sludge drama (see an INCREDIBLE report on it from CBS news here). Recall that San Francisco's Public Utility Commission gave away compost made from sewage sludge for several years, most recently in late 2009. They put this program on hold after a protest in March. In the latest installment of the story, San Francisco tested the sludge compost for 127 pollutants to "prove" that it was safe. They found some stuff in it - DDE and DDD (breakdown products of DDT), a phthalate called DEHP (a lovely chemical credited for making boys penises smaller if they are exposed while in their mothers' wombs), some dioxins, and a little bit of cyanide. They also found some heavy metals although none exceeded the legal limits for what is allowed in sludge. It's worth noting, however, that one of the metals they found was chromium, which is not regulated in sewage sludge used as fertilizer.

However, they did NOT test for flame retardants, even though tests done by the EPA as well as prior tests done of San Francisco's sewage sludge compost by the Center for Food Safety indicated that flame retardants were probably present. Nor did they test for triclosan or any other pharmaceuticals. Triclosan, which is itself a suspected endocrine disruptor and breaks down into dioxins, was found in most samples tested by the EPA, as were many other pharmaceuticals.

But, even though San Francisco didn't test for these things, the Food Rights Network did. And, not surprisingly, they found them - along with another chemical called nonylphenols. (I should note that I'm working with FRN and I am being paid for writing about this subject.)

I think it would be disingenuous not to mention that, aside from this sludge issue, what I'm learning is that we live in a very toxic world, and much of the toxins are man-made. Often they are also unnecessary. In the case of flame retardants, California has a law that requires excessive use of them, and Californians are therefore exposed to high levels of various flame retardant chemicals (many of which are toxic). I recommend checking out the Green Science Policy Institute for information on how we might prevent fires in a less toxic way.

About triclosan and another chemical, triclocarban, both are used in antibacterial soaps and other products, but studies find them to be no more effective than regular soap and water. So in that case, what the hell are we doing using them? Especially when so many of us have measurable levels of the chemicals in our bodies, and when triclosan and triclocarban in the soil makes it into the edible portions of the plants and thus gets into our diets. NRDC has just sued the FDA to ban these in soaps and body washes, so cross your fingers.

Sludge is more or less a catch-all for every sort of chemical we put down the drains in our homes, hospitals, and in industry. It's where it all comes out in the wash, unless it is somehow processed out of the sludge or released with effluent in the wastewater treatment plant. And I'm finding that the answer in many cases isn't just to dispose of sludge in a site suitable for toxic waste but also to stop using the toxins in the first place - particularly in the cases I've cited here where they aren't serving much purpose beyond getting into the environment and our bodies and causing trouble.

When Environmentalists Go Bad (and Tell Lies)

Jill Richardson — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 01:17:39 GMT

Since 2007, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has given away "free organic biosolids compost" to gardeners and school gardens in San Francisco. Of course, their "organic" compost could not be legally applied on an organic farm because its made of sewage sludge - what the sewage industry likes to euphemistically call "biosolids." Sewage sludge is minimally regulated by the EPA and its use as fertilizer for food crops has resulted in human and animal deaths in the past. Of course, usually it doesn't result in such acute toxicity, but those are the chances you take when you play with such a minimally regulated chemical soup.

I've told this story on this blog before, but there's a reason I'm bringing it up again: new revelations, discovered by the Food Rights Network. Until now, I've largely given the SFPUC the benefit of the doubt and took them at their word. I was wrong to do so.

The Vice President of SFPUC is Francesca Vietor, a famous environmentalist in the Bay Area. She's credited with influencing the city's adoption of the Precautionary Principle, which means treating nothing as safe until it is proven so. Yet SFPUC's sludge giveaways represent the very opposite of that: giving away a product of unidentified risks, closing your eyes, and hoping you don't get caught. (To date, the sludge "compost" giveaway program ran from 2007 until it was recently ended and, to the best of my knowledge, SFPUC is only now performing comprehensive testing on it to check for safety.)

When this scandal broke out, at first it seemed that Vietor could be the key to reforming SFPUC's sludge policies. Sadly, Vietor took the low road. Instead of doing the right thing and adding one more credential to her environmentalist resume, she lied, stonewalled, made legal threats, and covered her own - and SFPUC's - ass.
The two outright lies she told are as follows:

Lie #1: She found out about the sludge giveaways and their potential dangers in early March of 2010. Actually, she found out on February 8, 2010 at the latest.

Lie #2: She put a stop to SFPUC's sludge giveaways once she found out about them. Actually, SFPUC's manager Ed Harrington put the giveaways on hold and informed Vietor of this in an email on March 5, 2010 (nearly a full month after Vietor found out about the controversy).

These two lies may seem inconsequential in and of themselves but they are part of a larger pattern of failing to address the risks of using sewage sludge as fertilizer. The risks are very much in line with the recent report of the President's Cancer Panel, which said that out of 80,000 chemicals in commercial use, only 200 have been assessed for safety. In sludge, only 10 are regulated. This is the opposite of the Precautionary Principle. It's staying in the dark about the contents and the risks of sludge and hoping for the best.

The internal emails from SFPUC (which you can see in this timeline of the controversy) revealed that they - including Vietor - never truly considered that use of sludge as fertilizer may be dangerous. Instead of investigating whether those who opposed the use of sludge as fertilizer had a point, they merely crafted PR statements and tried to quiet the protesters, hoping that nobody would attack the sludge giveaway program the really cared about - giving away sludge to Solano County, where it is used as fertilizer.

San Francisco cannot dispose of all of its sludge as "Alternate Daily Cover" (ADC) on nearby landfills, and it faces pressure as more counties ban the application of "Class B biosolids" on land as fertilizer (Class B biosolids is sludge approved for use as fertilizer on animal feed crops). Currently, there is pressure to do this in Solano County. There are also narrowing options or increased costs to send the sludge to landfills. According to the document, San Francisco applies about 19% of its sludge on land. A little over half of it goes to Alternate Daily Cover on landfills, 14% is incinerated, and 10% goes in landfills. (Source: "Bay Area Biosolids Management: Challenges, Opportunities, and Policies," 2009.) They don't mind ending their sludge compost giveaways (which accounted for a tiny percentage of their overall sludge) but they would be very upset if Solano County stopped accepting their sludge for land application.

Another issue, albeit one that was not discussed in SFPUC's internal emails, is this: If the sludge given to gardeners is actually toxic, will SFPUC be held liable to pay for cleaning up the gardens they've contaminated and reimbursing the gardeners for any health effects suffered from gardening in and eating produce from contaminated gardens?

And then, there's the other important issue at stake, covering Vietor's own ass. Early on in this controversy, it came to light that she had a conflict of interest. She simultaneously serves as the VP of the SFPUC and the Executive Director of Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Foundation (CPF). In fact, in her CPF role, she declined a request from Organic Consumers Association (OCA) to sign onto a letter opposing SFPUC's sludge giveaways. (To be fair, her reason was that CPF has a policy that it does not sign onto any letter, but still, the conflict of interest was not disclosed in her response.)

When Vietor's conflict of interest was called out publicly by John Stauber on PRwatch.org, Vietor responded by having the SFPUC's communications guy Tyrone Jue draft her response and then post it on PRWatch (per Jue's recommendations) under somene else from SFPUC's name.

When Organic Consumers Association pursued Alice Waters herself, asking for a statement that no food should be grown in sludge, Vietor began by emailing SFPUC staff for help covering her ass:

"Alice and CPF are not going to respond but it's really important for SFPUC staff to come up with answers about whether the stuff does or does not contain the chemicals that Stauber, et al, say it does, and if so, in what doses and what those dose levels mean. It's not enough, at least in San Francisco, to say it's better than fed and state regs require. Can you get these answers quickly -- as now that people are trying to oust me from the PUC -- so I can decide whether to go on the offensive against these guys."

When Alice Waters did respond publicly to OCA (supporting Vietor and SFPUC and refusing to come out in opposition of sludge-as-fertilizer), both Vietor and SFPUC staff reviewed and signed off on her statement before it was made public. And Vietor DID decide to go on the offensive, enlisting friends to publicly and privately take her side on the issue. (Just a question: If Vietor and SFPUC can make their critics look really bad in public, does that make sludge inherently safer?)

Then there's my favorite part of this little scandal. A few days after I spoke to Vietor on the phone and then forwarded her the EPA's own testing of samples of sludge from around the country, Vietor (referencing that study) said the following in regards to the SFPUC's public statements on the safety of sludge:

"one other edit on the response that Ty [Tyrone Jue] is creating -- I think the word 'stringent' should be taken out of the federal guidelines descriptor as I am learning that the fed guidelnes do not regulate a lot of toxins so may not be as stringent as we may want."

Ya think?

We are now awaiting the test results of the sludge "compost" given away by SFPUC, which are expected later this month. And, it will be interesting to see what happens next at SFPUC. Will it be back to the drawing board to craft PR statements, or will they actually examine the safety of sludge-as-fertilizer and perhaps come clean about the risks involved in applying it to land where food is grown? What happened to that Precautionary Principle?

Obviously, the sludge problem doesn't go away once we accurately assess its risks and stop lying about them. There IS a problem here. Humans create and use hundreds of thousands of chemicals and put them down the drain where they mix together with water and our own waste. Once these chemicals are created and then mixed, it's difficult, if not impossible, to separate them out and then dispose of them or put them to "beneficial use" (as the sludge industry likes to say. It would be infinitely expensive and perhaps impossible to truly remove every possible toxin from sludge, and it would be possible but expensive to dispose of sludge as the toxic waste that it is. (A "perk" of using sludge as fertilizer is that it's cheap.) So I get that every wastewater treatment plant has an expensive and difficult problem on its hands... But I also fail to see how lying about it and then disposing of it in a way that puts people's health at risk can help. The best solution for toxic sludge is to stop creating it in the first place.

Note: The work I'm doing on sludge is funded by the Center for Media & Democracy.

San Francisco is Testing Its Sludge For Safety

Jill Richardson — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 05:46:03 GMT

Here's the response I received from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission about their safety testing of their sludge compost that was given away free to San Francisco gardeners:

Thanks for your inquiry about the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC)'s Biosolids Compost Program. As you have mentioned on your email, the test results for the biosolids compost given away in fall 2009 posted online are the same reports that are printed and made available at each of our giveaway events. Repeated test results have shown the metal concentrations in the biosolids compost given away by the SFPUC were comparable to the compost found in a gardening store. The testing standards and test results must meet compliance standards set through the EPA's Part 503 Rule.
The nine pollutants regulated by EPA's Part 503 Rule were selected after a 1984 Risk Assessment that included more than 200 inorganic and organic pollutants. In order to responsibly regulate a pollutant certain information must be available in order to conduct a risk assessment. Such information includes toxicity, fate and transport (from within the biosolids matrix preferably), reasonable routes of exposure, and the dose to which the subject would be exposed. For those 200 pollutants, a hazard quotient (HQ) was calculated which is a measure for potential adverse effects to public health or the environment. Some 25 pollutants had a HQ of greater than one, which called for a full effect characterization through a comprehensive risk assessment. Fourteen pathways of exposure were evaluated with numerous conservative assumptions built in through which it was ensured that all reasonably anticipated adverse effects were captured. Ten pollutants were determined to be necessary to regulate (later reduced to nine in 2001).
The SFPUC is currently undertaking a comprehensive test of our biosolids compost, including heavy metals and pollutants of concern. In an effort to be completely transparent, these tests go above and beyond any current regulatory requirements for either biosolids compost or what is readily available as soil amendment from commercial gardening stores.
Our test results will be available to the public as soon as they are completed. I hope this information helps you in the meantime. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need additional information.

I'd like to call out a gaping flaw that appears in the EPA's method of determining what to regulate in sludge as it is described here. There are literally tens of thousands of chemicals that can show up in sludge. Testing a mere 200 of them can hardly guarantee the safety of sludge. And the proof for that is in the pudding - when Andy McElmurray applied sewage sludge from Augusta, GA on his fields where he grew crops to feed his cows, the cows died. McElmurray went out of business. And milk was sold in the supermarket with high levels of thallium - a rat poison - in them. Thallium is NOT one of the chemicals that the EPA deemed hazardous enough to regulate. And it's not even a common chemical found in sludge, to the best of my knowledge. But that doesn't mean that it's never found in sludge or that the regulations keep us safe from it.

On another note, I'm encouraged that SFPUC promises to make its results fully available to the public once they are complete. However, it's been MONTHS since they supposedly initiated this testing. How long does it take? And what are they doing that requires so long? Shopping around for a lab that gives them the results they want? Sending back positive results for re-testing until they come back negative? Or, on the other hand, are they really doing the world's most complete testing of their sludge compost to ensure that it's 100% safe for applications in gardens where food is produced? I hope it's the latter.

San Francisco Has to Do More to Prove Their Sludge is Safe

Jill Richardson — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 04:01:03 GMT

San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) promised to test its "biosolids compost" (i.e. sludge from 9 counties mixed with yard waste and composted) for safety. That was great news. But the results are less than stellar.

Along with a long list of letters (mostly from the sludge lobby) praising its sludge giveaway program, they show test results for a few heavy metals and fecal coliform. Even though sludge contains tens of thousands of chemicals and organisms, the EPA only regulates 10. And that's exactly what they tested for. The problem? The biggest danger in sludge isn't (usually) those 10 regulated toxins. After all, they are regulated! The problem comes from the countless OTHER toxins and pathogens that can occur in sludge.
To save you the fun of downloading SFPUC's PDF documents, here's what they found in their sludge:

Arsenic: 4.1200ppm
Cadmium: 2.5800ppm
Cobalt: 2.3100ppm
Mercury: 0.4990ppm
Molybdenum: 5.2000ppm
Nickel: 14.2000ppm
Lead: 25.4000ppm
Selenium: 1.4200ppm
Zinc: 328ppm

They also shared various tests over time for those same elements. Here are the highs and lows found for each element between March 2009 and September 2009:

Arsenic: 2.6ppm-10ppm
Cadmium: 0.9003ppm-7.1ppm
Chromium: 20.8ppm-44ppm
Cobalt: 1.92ppm-4.1ppm
Copper: 140ppm-330ppm
Lead: 13.9ppm-41ppm
Mercury: 0.31ppm-.96ppm
Molybdenum: 2.5ppm-10ppm
Nickel: 10.3ppm-59ppm
Selenium: <1.0ppm-1.42ppm
Zinc: 232ppm-550ppm

Also in Sept 2009, they tested for fecal coliform and found <3 mpn/g. They also tested for salmonella and found <3 mpn/g as well. Interestingly, salmonella was the only thing they tested for that ISN'T regulated by EPA. But what about dioxins, pesticides, PCBs, pharmaceuticals, hormones, steroids, flame retardants and all of the rest of the stuff that can be found in sludge? Where are those tests? What is SFPUC hiding?

Let me be clear about this. It's not as if SFPUC is ignorant. They test their sludge regularly for a loooong list of chemicals. So it's not as if it's never crossed their minds to test their sludge for nasty chemicals outside of the few regulated heavy metals and fecal coliform. They either don't want to test for other toxins and pathogens, or they DID test for them and they don't want us to know what they found. So which is it?

Why I Don't Love Sewage Sludge

Jill Richardson — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 03:21:41 GMT

The Seattle PI has a blog post called "Why I Love Biosolids." I'm including excerpts below, with my own commentary.

In the last few weeks several people have come to me asking about the safety of biosolids-use in their home gardens, and moreover, have asked why I advocate the use of biosolids. In short, biosolids composts are safe, highly-regulated, sustainable, climate-friendly products, that your plants will LOVE. They are high in nutrients, support healthy soil microbial communities, and improve the tilth (physical attributes) of soil. Farmers around the world, including US farmers, have known this for ages.

Wow. Where do I start? Safe, no. Highly-regulated, NO. Healthy soil microbial communities? OK, "biosolids" (sewage sludge - let's call it what it is) can contain antibiotic-resistant bacteria and parasites... you call that healthy?

Biosolids are a product from the wastewater treatment process, and are EPA-regulated under the Clean Water Act.

Just because sewage sludge is regulated by the EPA, that doesn't make it safe. Unfortunately, on this particular issue, the EPA is one of the bad guys. Their standards are incredibly lax - they only regulate 10 harmful substances out of the THOUSANDS you can find in the sewage sludge that they allow farmers and gardeners to use as fertilizer (what they call biosolids - a term that my spellcheck thinks isn't a word, probably because it was made up only to "sell" sewage sludge as a "safe" fertilizer to unsuspecting Americans).

In US cities, everything we flush, throw down the kitchen sink, and wash down the bathroom shower ends up at the wastewater treatment plant. Some people call biosolids sewage sludge, but the term biosolids specifically refers to treated sewage sludge.

That's only a partial description of its contents. It includes everything industry and hospitals wash down their drains too, including heavy metals, dioxins, pesticides, PCBs, you name it.

Here our wastewater gets cleaned via a system of filters, and the solids are left behind. While the clean water is either being used for irrigation as "reclaimed water", or sent into our rivers, lakes, or oceans, the solids go under treatment... What is eventually left at the end of this process, is no longer the original solids, but mostly the dead (and some live) bodies of the microorganisms who consumed our waste.

So here's what happens to all of the toxins that go down the drain... some stay in the water even after it's treated, some go into the air, some are actually removed via composting, and the rest remains in the sewage sludge after treatment.

Before biosolids can be applied to farm land, or distributed to the public for home garden use, they must be vigorously tested, and meet stringent safety regulations. I take comfort in knowing that biosolids are heavily regulated. They are far more heavily regulated than manures, yard waste composts, and fertilizers.

Yeah, soooo... none of that's true.

What about pharmaceuticals and other trace organics?
Pharmaceuticals and other organic compounds are not regulated in biosolids. This does not mean, however, that this topic has not been researched! When EPA set the guidelines for biosolids regulation, they decided not to regulate substances like PCB's, dioxin, and estrogenic compounds, because concentrations are so incredibly low, that they are rarely found. When these compounds are detected, they are in such low concentrations that risk assessment studies (conducted independently by EPA and several U.S. Universities) find risks to the public and environment to be negligible. Despite the fact that these substances are not federally regulated, public works agencies such as King County biosolids division, routinely monitors for these substances... just to be sure. What are the chances fertilizer producers check, just to be sure?
The fact that substances like dioxin, PCB's, and estrogenic compounds exist in the environment is bad, the fact that they are in background level concentrations in biosolids is good. The fact that government agencies and universities continue to monitor and study these compounds is also good.

I've seen the EPA's own numbers from the last time they tested the sewage sludge from 80 sites around the U.S. They found a whole lot of heavy metals, flame retardants, and more in the samples. As for safety, people and animals have died from using sludge as fertilizer. So, quite frankly, I think that's a good indication that there are toxins in sludge at significant levels. And I extend my sympathy to the author of the "Why I Love Biosolids" article because she has been duped into putting her health at risk by using sludge as fertilizer in her garden.

Oh Alice, Don't Let Them Do This To You

Jill Richardson — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 04:34:15 GMT

Oh lord, now an industry astroturf group (the American Council on Science and Health) is expressing their schadenfreude over Alice Waters' refusal to renounce growing any food in sewage sludge. And there's one thing they have right (which is one more than usual): Alice Waters IS a hero of the sustainable food movement.

But here's the full statement they made:

"I have to admit to some schadenfreude when the organic, 'environmentalist' crowd turns on itself," says Stier. "Ms. Waters was a hero of the sustainable food movement, but now they are turning on her because of very low levels of heavy metals in this compost, less even than you'd get from a vitamin supplement. The irony, of course, is that using biosolids is a wonderfully environmentalist thing to do, since it safely recycles waste materials; the 'environmentalists' are on the wrong side of this environmental issue."

They are congratulating Waters because using sewage sludge is a "wonderfully environmentalist" thing to do?? Alice, please, these people still think DDT should be legal. Don't let them count you as being on their side. It hurts me to see Alice Waters used like this.

(As for those heavy metals... they've done a nice job cherry-picking the ONE class of toxins in sewage sludge that is somewhat regulated. Sure, sludge might not have too much lead in it... but how about flame retardants, dioxins, pharmaceuticals, and phthalates?)