They also filmed the spreading operation.The stuff is called " biosolid" but it isn't solid: It comes out
of the chute in long, slimy globs and ropes of ooze. "We could smell it at 1000 feet up," Norman remembers grimly.
Every household in Cedarville, farmers included, eventually signed a petition to ban the spreading.
Township
officials were rudely dismissive at first, but finally voted not to issue any new permits for now, though existing ones are good for five years.
Politics is rough and ready in small towns.
Farmers who benefit financially from the
sewage sludge
also hold seats on council, and "conflict of interest" is neither as clear-cut nor as damaging
as it seems in the big City.
Kiyoshi Oka, a senior engineer with Toronto's water pollution control unit, assured me that industrial effluent forms only 5 per cent of Tor
onto's waste water, that there are stringent city by-laws preventing toxic dumping into sewers,and that Toronto's biosolids consistently test under the federal legal limits for pathogens and heavy metals. In fact, Toronto's sewage sludge is so
beneficial that there isn't enough to fill the demand, he said.
I wonder why, in that case, Toronto pays contractors to give the stuff free to farmers? And why is it, even post-Walkerton, that anyone who protests the way we deal with waste gets labelled "hysterical!' or "misinformed!'?
So far as I can tell, no one is out there watching the contractors spread sewage sludge on
agricultural land, and no one is enforcing the existing safe guide lines. "The contractor is
responsible for adhering to the guidelines,' said Oka.
Little red flags of caution have been raised in the U.S., where environmental groups report on high levels of toxins and low levels of government inspection of sewage sludge. Biosolid workers are said to be at risk of exposure to salmonella, shigella, campylobacter, cryptosporidium, giardia, and enteric
viruses. The Journal of Animal Science noted that sheep eating cabbage grown on sludge developed
lesions of the liver and thyroid-gland, and pigs had elevated levels of cadmium .
The sufferings of Walkerton mean nothing unless politicians and bureaucrats, from the tiniest rural townships to Queen's Park, start listening seriously and answering questions. That doesn't let us off the hook: Ultimately, each citizen must hold politicians accountable for the way we deal with the waste we create.
Questions:
1. What is biosolid?
2. Can the E.coli bacteria in Goodeve and Norman's house be linked to the biosolid? Explain your answer.
3. What evidence is there that the biosolid in Cedarville was ending up in fresh water?
4. What does the article mean by the fact that there is a conflict of interest on Cedarville council?
5. What evidence from the United States is there that we should be very cautious about using biosolid as a fertilizer?
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