SLUDGE VICTIMS

Home on the Range at the Nation's Largest Sewage Dump

Texas has the dubious distinction of leading the nation in a number of areas of environmental degradation including the toxic air emissions of cancer causing chemicals. What is less well known is that Texas is home to the nation's largest sewage sludge dump. This week, Texas PEER examines how Sierra Blanca a small town on the U.S./Mexico border, became the resting place for New York City's sewage. Additionally, this segment will focus on how Gov. George W. Bush's environmental regulatory appointees and former staffers ignored local health concerns and illegal dumping to support tripling New York's waste being dumped in the Lonestar State.

The Recipe for Sierra Blanca Sludge
Sewage sludge is the wet solid cake produced after human, residential and industrial wastes are combined in wastewater treatment plants. The Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory reveals that millions of pounds of chemicals are discharged to sewer treatment plants across the nation. A special report from Cornell University estimated that over 60,000 toxic substances and chemical compounds can be found in sewage sludge. Because industrial wastes are combined at central treatment plants, sewage sludge can contain heavy metals such as arsenic, chromium, mercury, lead and even radioactive waste products. Also, carcinogens such as PCBs and pesticides along with pathogens including viruses and bacteria carrying E. coli, Salmonella, and TB are found in sewage sludge. "What is Sludge?"

How New York Sewage Came to Texas
Until Congress banned ocean dumping of sewage sludge in 1988, New York City dumped millions of tons of its sewage into the ocean. New York sludge was too contaminated with toxic pollutants to be used and too expensive to be buried safely in a landfill. In 1992, New York City awarded Merco Joint Venture, an Oklahoma-based company tied to New York organized crime (2), a six-year contract to dispose of nearly a fifth of the Big Apples' sewage sludge.

TEXAS, SIERRA BLANCA- ODORS.-- "AMMONIA VAPOR MIXED WITH FECAL SMELL" - "IT SMELLS LIKE DEATH" SLUDGE VICTIMS SUFFER STRANGE RASHES, BLISTERS IN MOUTH, MORE FLU, COLDS, ALLERGIES, ASTHMA -- RANCHER UNABLE TO SELL PROPERTY BECAUSE OF SMELL.