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Cheers to Matt Stoller for an excellent post on OpenLeft: E. Coli Conservative Gordon Smith Irrigates Crops with Sewage. Oregon Senator Gordon Smith has a company. Smith's Frozen Foods. The company stored partially treated sewage in their waste water pond. Then they used that water to irrigate crops. Oh, and the water was contaminated with E. coli. Yum.
I wrote a diary yesterday explaining a little bit the Oregon Senate race between Smith and Democrat Jeff Merkley. I guess I forgot to include a little bit of background about sewage sludge in that diary. Oops.
On this topic, I refer to the book Toxic Sludge is Good For You, which explains the problem we have with our own waste. The root of the problem is that we mix industrial waste with poop and pee. Whatever goes down the drain - any drain - mixes together.
The idea of composting human waste and spreading it on farm fields is an ancient one. The Chinese did it rather famously. Instead of treating poop as a burdensome, toxic waste product, it was valued fertilizer. But the nightsoil the Chinese used didn't have heavy metals like lead and cadmium in it. Because we mix all waste from all sources together, ours does. What happens to human waste now is that they do what they can to clean it up and whatever's left, well... there's no real good solution. It's toxic, and no one [in their right mind] wants it.
That doesn't stop them from trying. The sewage sludge industry has tried to rebrand itself as "biosolids" and advertise its product as a fertilizer. Often when a farmer decides to apply sewage sludge to farm fields, it generates outrage and resistance from those in the community. To avoid this, they've tried to have willing farmers put sewage sludge on fields on the sly. Some communities even try to sell their own "brand" of sewage sludge. They come up with some rather interesting brand names for the stuff actually.
Here's a bit from the Sourcewatch site on sludge:
If the "Water Environment Federation" has its way, you'll be routinely eating fruits and vegetables fertilized with sewage sludge containing heavy metals, dangerous viruses, dioxins, PCBs, pesticides and hundreds of other toxic chemicals.
The WEF, whose pleasant-sounding name conceals its true identity as the main lobby association for U.S. sewage treatment plants, is working closely with the Environmental Protection Agency to persuade farmers and food processors that sewage sludge is a "beneficial fertilizer."
When they've been successful in spreading sewage sludge on fields, the result has been deadly. Literally. Farmers will notice all of their cows dying and only later find out it's because there were heavy metals applied to the farmfield next door via sewage sludge. This is NOT that natural stuff that ancient cultures successfully used as fertilizer. Thanks Gordon Smith.
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