By Aaron Lake Smith | Al Jazeera America
October 23, 2013

ORANGE COUNTY, NC —

Berry-Jo Farms, a hay and beef-cattle operation, is run by Berry Andrews, a genial 74-year-old farmer. In the late 1980s, he was struggling to make ends meet when the Orange County Water and Sewer Authority (OWASA) came around and bought up much of his property. OWASA offered to lease Andrews his land back for $1 an acre if he agreed to use municipal waste as fertilizer. After making his deal with OWASA, he sold his dairy operation and bought beef cattle. "I wouldn't be in business today if it wasn't for sludge," he said. "I may be a dumb farmer, but that sludge works better than regular fertilizer and is free."

Each year, the US produces eight million tons of dry sewage, referred to as biosolids, roughly half of which is processed and applied as a free fertilizer. Every year, Orange County, NC, alone produces and spreads about 18 million gallons of it. This mucky civilization by-product contains human excrement and has been found to include industrial runoff, oil, household chemicals, funeral-home waste and drugs. A recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) survey found heavy metals, PCBs, flame retardants, cocaine, antidepressants, birth-control medications and silver in treated sludge. EPA regulations for the land application of biosolids are some of the most lenient in the world, requiring wastewater-treatment plants to check for just nine of some 80,000 pollutants that can make it through processing and into sewage sludge.

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The Sewage Sludge Action Network has joined the Frack-Free NC Alliance. “Frack-Free NC” is a network of grassroots organizations who believe that shale gas development using “fracking” and horizontal drilling cannot be done without bringing harm to our waters, land, air, communities and public health. There are cases where fracking fluids are being ‘treated’ at waste water treatment plants, i.e. where the waste byproducts are introduced into sewage sludge. Fracking fluids contain upwards of 800 chemicals, many of which are carcinogenic.

By Bruce Henderson
bhenderson@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Saturday, Mar. 16, 2013

Charlotte’s export of sewage sludge to rural South Carolina has made it a target of neighbors who say the stuff is making them sick.

A University of North Carolina study published last week supported their claims. It found evidence that sludge used to fertilize farm fields can be unhealthy for people who live up to a mile away.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/03/16/3919752/sc-residents-raising-a-stink-over.html#storylink=cpy

CHAPEL HILL, NC —Treated municipal sewage sludge—the solids from sewage treatment—may be causing illness in people up to a mile from where it is spread on land.

Those are the findings from researchers at the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health.

BY PETER SUROWSKI
STAFF WRITER
January 12, 2013; 07:45 PM

Sludge is a big problem in Menifee, some residents say, and they are not going to take it anymore.

About 20 residents gathered at the Wooden Nickel Ranch in Menifee on Saturday, Jan. 12, to air concerns and figure out what to do about it.

They browsed through records and photos of sludge scattered on picnic benches, chatting with each other about the problem.

Many said they felt that sludge was dumped in Menifee, that it is dangerous and government officials are doing nothing to protect residents.

Residents have been urging the City Council to direct staff to open an investigation into the dumping of sludge in Menifee, but they have seen no progress, said Marc Miller, a former planning commissioner.

“It’s negligence of public safety. That’s (the council’s) primary concern, the safety of the public. When we publicly voice our concerns, they retaliate by saying, ‘Prove it,’” Miller said.

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by Rebekah Wilce — December 18, 2012 - 8:57am
Topics: Agriculture, Sludge, Corporations
Projects: Food Rights Network

Don't fancy the thought of your spinach and carrots being grown in sewage sludge?

Neither does Mario Ciasulli, a semi-retired electrical engineer living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Mario likes to cook, and enjoys good food. When he found out last year about the practice of spreading dried and heated human and industrial waste as "fertilizer" on food crops, he was upset.

Certified organic food cannot be grown in sewage sludge -- or "biosolids," the Orwellian PR euphemism used by the sewage sludge industry.

But sometimes the vegetable Mario needs for a dish isn't certified organic, or he can't afford the higher price of the organically grown version. Until he found out about sludge, he thought that as long as a "conventionally" grown fruit or vegetable he used wasn't one of the "dirty dozen" for pesticide residues, he had nothing to worry about.

Sewage sludge is created by all of the human waste flushed down the toilet and sinks -- which includes all the pharmaceutical residues the men, women, and children in the city using the sewage system use -- and all the material corporations flush down the drain, which can include industrial materials, solvents, medical waste, and other chemicals. The water is removed from the sludge, and it is heated to kill certain bacteria, but the heating of the sewage sludge does not remove metals, flame retardants (which California recently listed as a carcinogen, or cancer-causing agent), and other chemicals that remain in the sewage sludge when food crops are grown in it.

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