More On Toxic Sludge
by tristero
Jill Richardson of La Vida Locavore, easily one of the most important food movement blogs on the net, has been writing about the toxic sludge being passed off as organic compost by San Francisco. I blogged about it once already, and now Jill has some more information. It’s pretty horrific:
When San Francisco, one of the greenest cities in America, offered its residents free compost, many were excited to take it. After all, purchasing enough compost for even a small 10 x 10-foot garden can cost over $50, and generating one’s own compost in high enough quantities for such a garden takes a long time.
Few of the gardeners who lined up to receive the free compost at events like last September’s Big Blue Bucket Eco-Fair suspected that the 20 tons of free bags labeled “organic biosolids compost” actually contained sewage sludge from nine California counties. On Thursday, March 4, angry San Franciscans returned the toxic sludge to the city, dumping it at Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office in protest.
Sewage sludge is the end product of the treatment process for any human waste, hospital waste, industrial waste and — in San Francisco — stormwater that goes down the drain….
When confronted by angry gardeners who had been duped into applying toxic sludge to their gardens, city and state authorities defended their actions. The California Association of Sanitation Agencies insisted that because San Francisco has “virtually no industrial facilities within its borders or sewer service area,” the waste was not a combination of “industrial, commercial, hospital, and household wastewater.” But, according to Organic Consumers Association, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) has documented the following in San Francisco sludge alone: p-Isopropyltoluene (an industrial chemical used in the manufacture of paint, furniture, etc); 1,4-Dichlorobenzene, a disinfectant, deodorant and pesticide; Tolulene (an aromatic hydrocarbon widely used as an industrial feedstock and as a solvent); 1,2,4-Trimethylbenzene (a product of petroleum refinery distillation); and Phenol (used in the manufacture of drugs, antiseptics, nylon and other synthetic fibers).
In a letter to Digby and me, Jill added:
On the whole though, this is covered up by the MSM because every single municipality has sludge they are trying to get rid of AND some of the largest environmental groups agreed not to oppose land application of sewage sludge.
To date, Jill informs us, there has been exactly one msm story on the toxic sludge, from the local CBS affiliate in San Francisco.
I’ll try to keep you posted. Meanwhile, if you are in the habit of accepting free compost/manure/biosolids/similar stuff from your municipality, it might be a damn good idea to ask a few questions about it before spreading it all over your garden.