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HealthZone.ca - News & Features - Is sewage fertilizer safe?

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Is sewage fertilizer safe?
Worries grow over 'stew' of chemicals spread on farmland
July 12, 2008
Comments on this story (32)
Carola Vyhnak
URBAN AFFAIRS REPORTER

Feces, urine, vomit, blood. Synthetic hormones, heart pills, antibiotics, illicit drugs, Viagra. Bacteria, viruses, E. coli, parasites. Household cleaners, shampoo, solvents, pesticides and traces of arsenic, mercury, cadmium, lead, dioxins and flame retardants.

Each day, this chemical cocktail is piped from our homes, businesses and industries to sewage plants across the province. The water is filtered and reclaimed.

The solid waste that remains is turned into biosolids, more commonly called sludge. For more than 30 years, Ontario's sludge has been trucked out to farmland for use as fertilizer.

Then in 1996, the province, which monitors sludge dispersal, increased promotion of the nutrient-rich goo to farmers as a beneficial alternative to chemical fertilizers. Officials insist sludge is tested and safe and that there are no documented cases of adverse health effects when requirements are followed.

But some rural residents who live near properties where sludge has been used have argued for years that what ends up on fields isn't benign fertilizer, but a "toxic stew" that's harming them and the environment.

"It takes the air out of your lungs and burns your eyes. It's nasty, nasty stuff," said Crystal Chordis, a resident of Corbetton north of Orangeville.

Country-dwellers exposed to sludge complain of a litany of ailments including respiratory problems, diarrhea, headaches, nausea, rashes, fatigue and pneumonia.

Ontario's acting chief medical officer of health, Dr. David Williams, says a clear link to adverse health effects hasn't been established. He is satisfied that the practice of using biosolids on farmers' fields is safe and says the process of monitoring possible health issues is "active and ongoing."

Just what is making people ill is difficult to pin down but two things are apparent.

Firstly, what is making its way into our sewage system has changed with new drugs and chemicals raising questions as to whether the testing and tests are keeping pace.

Secondly, local officials who investigate health complaints are not required to report their findings to the province.

And while experts on both sides of the issue are mostly at odds, they agree on the first point: There is still a lot to learn about sludge.

"A complete analytical characterization of sludge's pathogen, endotoxin and chemical contaminant composition has never been attempted," says researcher Dr. Rob Hale of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Forty per cent of the sludge produced by Ontario's municipal sewage plants – 120,000 dry tonnes each year spread on 15,000 hectares – is put on soil where crops are grown. The bulk of it, which is given to farmers free, ranges in consistency from a thick liquid to a drier cakelike form.

A plant in Windsor turns a small amount of biosolids into dried pellets for which farmers pay about $19 a tonne. (What's not spread on farmland is burned or sent to landfills.)

Eighty per cent of Ontario's municipalities spread sludge on agricultural land. Last year, 13 per cent of Toronto's sludge was put on farmers' fields.

What to do with municipal sludge is nothing new and for years it was incinerated, sent to landfills or simply dumped into the nearest Great Lake.

Diverting some of it to fields got its start in the 1970s but went into high gear in 1996 after the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement stiffened sewage treatment guidelines and in turn created more sludge.

Since then, the province has pushed so-called land application as a safe option for municipalities struggling to deal with fast-filling landfills and a U.S. border that is slowly closing to Ontario's waste.

But the provincial regulations governing testing and application were last updated in 1998 and now a whole new range of chemical compounds is turning up in our sewer systems. Many of these, such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products, simply aren't tested for because there are few labs that can do that kind of analysis, no accepted methodology, and no benchmarks to say what's safe.

Yet, the lack of epidemiological studies means it cannot be determined whether sludge is making people sick. That has prompted a call for more research from Toronto toxicologist Dr. Anne Mildon.

"It's cause and effect," says Mildon, who treats several patients who believe sludge made them ill. "I'm too good a scientist to say, `Yes, this is definitely it,' but it's very likely."

Several major food companies are not taking any chances. Del Monte, Campbell Soup and Gerber won't use food that has been fertilized with biosolids. Not enough is known about biosolids, they say.

Del Monte developed its no-biosolids policy in the early '80s, concerned that trace amounts of heavy metals and chemicals might find their way into the food chain. The other firms have also had long-standing policies.

Mildon, who led a provincial task force on radioactive waste in Port Hope during the 1990s, says the provincial government has been in a "state of denial" and has failed miserably to address public health concerns about sludge.

Her concerns are echoed here and around the world.

In parts of the United States, several deaths have been linked to sludge exposure. In Ontario, several citizens' group including those in Prince Edward County and near Orangeville have succeeded in halting or restricting sludging.

Sweden, Switzerland, France and Holland are among the countries that have either banned or introduced tougher standards on the use of biosolids as fertilizer. Instead, they are burning more of it in energy-from-waste plants.

Since 2002, Ellen Harrison, recently retired director of the Waste Management Institute, a research and training branch of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., has argued for a ban on sludge application. She expresses frustration over the paucity of health studies.

One of the few is a recently published report by researchers from the University of Toledo in Ohio, which found a significant increase in problems such as abdominal bloating, jaundice and weight loss among residents exposed to treated fields.

The 2005 study surveyed 613 people over one month and researchers also noted an increased risk for respiratory, gastrointestinal and some chronic diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Four hundred and thirty-seven of the people surveyed lived within 1.6 kilometres of fields treated with biosolids, 176 lived further away.

In 2002, under pressure from concerned residents, the City of Ottawa commissioned a review on the health and safety of spreading biosolids.

Struck by the lack of medical information, the consultants concluded that a "surveillance system for monitoring health effects from biosolids does not appear to exist in any jurisdiction.

"While anecdotal cases are occasionally reported by the news media, few of these are investigated by trained teams of agronomists, engineers, toxicologists, microbiologists or public health professionals, let alone make their way into peer-reviewed research literature," the final report read.

After a two-year moratorium, sludge-spreading resumed in Ottawa.

Today, provincial officials do not know how many health complaints have been reported or how many investigations have been done in Ontario.

(Complicating the issue is people who experience illnesses they believe are related to sludge often are afraid to report anything because it would mean blowing the whistle on neighbours they value as friends and helping hands.)

Here's how the complaint system works in Ontario: Anyone with a health complaint they believe is related to biosolid-spreading should report it to their local health unit. The local medical officer of health investigates the complaint to determine whether a health hazard exists.

He or she notifies and consults with the environment ministry, which assesses if the sludge was applied according to provincially set regulations and standards. The medical officer of health also consults with the agriculture ministry. If provincial guidelines were violated or a health hazard exists the environment ministry can order the problem fixed and may lay charges.

After investigating, the health officer sends a written report to the complainant but there is no requirement to send the report to anyone at the provincial level.

Communication is at the discretion of the local health units, said David Jensen, a spokesperson for the health ministry. He added that Williams, the acting chief medical health officer, is required by law to keep himself informed "on matters related to occupational and environmental health."

Williams said he expects local medical officers of health to keep him in the loop but "there is no requirement by law to tell me everything they're doing."

Cornell's Harrison finds it "appalling" that Ontario does not catalogue complaints or do a thorough and immediate investigation. When a sludge-related health issue is suspected, she says, an investigation should be launched at the source, as it would be in an outbreak of food-borne disease.

Harrison had some advice for politicians: "If it is possible to err on the side of caution, do it: Put in place a system for complaints investigation, and (don't) continue with a `head in the sand' approach that everything is all right."

cvyhnak@thestar.ca

Toronto Star

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W.M.DEEEZ

One word answer?


NO!

I've been looking for the link, but I have to get to work...I've spoken about this before...I thought in the garden thread.


Sludge could be a great way to use human waste. If you wanted to do it on a small scale, it would be just fine. The problem arises when there is a factory somewhere "on line" with the sewer plant, and they dispose of toxic chemicals illegally...by flushing them.


In this country, we tend to give no thought to what happens once we flush, or dump something down the drain...


Sludge disposal is an issue, as there is so much of it, and we need to do something with it. Spreading it in fields contaminates the water supply, and produces toxic food.


I can't find the piece on the town that developed on odd type of cancer from this practice. When tested, they all had high levels of flame retardant in their blood.



I saw it on Discovery, or the likes a couple of years ago....

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Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone

michelemichele

Yeah, that's what I was thinking when I pasted it. Nasty as it sounds, using excrement (& other delightful effluvia) is as old as the hills: but the chemicals people dump into toilets & sewers -- that's another story altogether.

PS me and my books rolleyes


Amazon.com: The Ghost Map: The Story of London's... if you do a search on 'shit' - gak

edit - oh, could've spared the swear - first chapter "The Night-soil Men"

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W.M.DEEEZ

I found this one in my travels

Toxic Sludge Is Good For You | Center for Media and Democracy


I've got an odd hobby...I love going to nurseries, and checking out the organic fert. section. Often, I buy stuff on closeout. I scored bigtime in Walmart last year, and got a whole pallet of some fantastic organic fertilizer.



Once, I saw a jug of something I never noticed before. It is important to read the label, and look for the section where it states "derived from"...


This one jug with a catchy name...Gorilla Juice....was derived from human waste. I put it back on the shelf. At the time, I wasn't aware of the collateral issues w/human waste. It just sort of grossed me out.


The term "organic" has become a great catch phrase, used to sell many things....sadly, the spectrum of what is legally "organic" is entirely too broad, and is being debated by lawyers as we speak.


Buyer beware...

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Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone

Cookie

About 5 years ago, I bought some topsoil (supposedly, but that's what the bag said) from Wal Mart to add to a narrow strip of dirt along a sidewalk and next to my garage. When I opened the bag, it smelled like sewage. I thought it was odd, but put it down anyway. I planted a beautiful row of marigolds in it. They started out fine, but after they got bigger, they began dying. Since then, I can't plant anything there that doesn't soon die off.

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Corgi butts drive me nuts.

brian_wilbanks

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If you don't like my fire, then don't come around, cuz I'm about to burn one down.

brian_wilbanks

I used to grow pot, and I always read that it was NEVER a good idea to use human fertilizer AKA "Nightsoil"

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If you don't like my fire, then don't come around, cuz I'm about to burn one down.

michelemichele

(such a good point it needed to be highlighted)

That's scary

Yeah, you can see I woke up in quite the mood this morning

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brian_wilbanks

Can NEVER go wrong with bat guano.

Taken from the septic tank of Wayne manor

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If you don't like my fire, then don't come around, cuz I'm about to burn one down.

michelemichele

Now if only we knew they were putting that in farmer's fields

I am going to be scrubbing produce furiously again

Deez: I'm afraid of checking out that book you're recommending

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