Your Local Wasteland - Toxins in Sludge

[Guest guest]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49279-2001Aug22.html

Your Local Wasteland

Thursday, August 23, 2001; Page A24

I read the Aug. 6 Metro article on the hazards of sludge spreading.

Along with sludge, the waste industry spreads a lot of myths. One is that

sludge is treated to remove toxic metals and other contaminants. Not so.

Sewage treatment plants are designed to remove contaminants from waste

water, not sludge. Toxic metals, dioxins and other wastewater contaminants

concentrate in the resultant sludge.

Every month, every industry in the country is allowed to discharge up to 33

pounds of hazardous waste into sewage-treatment plants without penalty or

reporting. According to the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release

Inventory, toxic discharges into the nation's treatment plants have

increased every year since 1996. Much of this material ends up in the sludge

that is spread on the nation's farms as " fertilizer. "

Sewage-treatment plants were designed to clean up wastewater, not to produce

fertilizer. Because industry uses sewers to discharge much of its waste, and

because this waste concentrates in sludge, the Federal Clean Water Act

always defined sewage sludge as a pollutant.

CAROLINE SNYDER

North Sandwich, N.H.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company