Biosolids, Human sludge

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Editorial

Whistle needs blowing on biosolids


August 5, 2002

Even with proof positive that people exposed to fields fertilized with human excrement (biosolids) are becoming ill, and in some cases, even dying, the practice of fertilizing fields with biosolids not only continues, it’s on the increase.

Bureaucrats have decided it’s cheaper for farmers to fertilize their fields with human sludge, a process increasingly used in Canada, the United Stares and Western Europe.

Human sludge is also being used to fertilize lawns and gardens.

That means avoiding places where the sewer sludge is being applied is becoming more difficult for John Q. Public. Last May, a Medical Officer of Health for Ontario’s Haliburton, Kawartha and Pine Ridge District, confirmed that sewer sludge spread on a nearby field in Percy Township caused a 10-month-old child to suffer adverse health consequences.

An 11-year-old boy from Osceola Mills, Pa., died of staphylococcal septicaemia. The boy had complained of a sore throat, headaches and boils on one leg and one arm several days after riding his motorbike through sewer sludge applied to a nearby field. The boy did not respond to antibiotics and died six days after the bacteria first traveled into his bloodstream.

In other cases, residents of nearby fields spread with the sludge reported having to destroy a number of cats, dogs and farm animals after they developed boils, following the application of sludge on nearby tracts of land.

Pathogens carried in dust blowing off fields treated with the sludge make going to the country a less than innocent pastime.

British Columbia spreads more than 70,000 tonnes of biosolids across its fields annually. It comes mostly from Vancouver’s two million residents. However, new standards recently imposed by the province require that only pasteurized, Class A biosolids be used on land in B.C.

About 120,000 tonnes of sewage biosolids are spread on 5,000 to 6,000 acres of Ontario farmland each year, according to Eileen Smith, Manager of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle from the Ministry of the Environment. About 50,000 tonnes of the sludge is produced at Toronto’s Ashbridges Bay Sewage Treatment Plant. (The one city politicians promised to have closed down by the year 2000). Half of the sludge is given to contracted haulers to be spread on fields. The other half is made into pelletized fertilizer or is incinerated. Toronto, which has no shortage of sewage sludge, is currently hauling its biosolids to the Republic Landfill site in Michigan.

Incredibly, Toronto, which had a pilot project pasteurizing biosolids, arbitrarily replaced the award-winning process back in 1997. The city chose to pass its sewer sludge into the willing hands of Terratec Environmental–a company now facing two cases under the Environmental Protection Act for applying sludge in disregard to the required setback distances, thus causing nearby residents to lose enjoyment of their properties.

Terratec, associated with Enron, continues to freely spread Toronto sludge on any farm that receives a Certificate of Approval from Ontario’s Ministry of Environment.

Precious little of the dangers of pathogens from biosolids has been reported in the established media.

Indeed, if it weren’t for dedicated biosolids environmentalist Maureen Reilly and a businessman, Toronto Free Press, one of the first news outlets to write about the sludge, wouldn’t have known.

Emailed photographs of ailing farm animals are proof that farmers are worried about the spreading of sewer sludge on their fields.

Large, generously financed environmental groups like Greenpeace have been silent on the issue, leaving farmers and ordinary citizens to pick up the cause.

Many people in Ontario are still unaware of the dangers to health from fields fertilized by human excrement because as questionable as the process is, it’s legal. How many average citizens understand `biosolids,’ the name government bureaucrats gave to sewer sludge?

A potential major health hazard to average citizens across the land needs the microscope of limelight.


Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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