From Rural Pennsylvania to South America, a Global Alliance is Promoting the Idea that Ecosystems Have Intrinsic Rights

By Jason Mark

Cathy Miorelli doesn’t think of herself as an environmentalist. When Miorelli decided to run for the city council of Tamaqua Borough – a small town in central Pennsylvania where she has lived her entire life – she didn’t have any sort of eco-agenda. It was 2004, and the hottest controversy in Tamaqua involved a proposal by an outside company to dump sewage sludge and coal fly ash into abandoned mining pits on the edge of town. But the main issue on Miorelli’s mind was creating more transparent governance on the council, which she says had long been dominated by an old boys’ network. “I was just concerned about everything overall, not really so much the environment,” says Miorelli, who has worked for 16 years as the nurse at the Tamaqua high school. “You know, I didn’t run on any kind of platform, saying that I was going to change the world here or anything.”

photo by Brett Weston, Corbis

She did change the world, though. Halfway through her one-term stint on the council, Miorelli spearheaded the passage of an anti-sewage sludge ordinance that included a provision recognizing the rights of “natural communities” to flourish – the first law of its kind in the world. The Tamaqua Borough ordinance inspired dozens of other communities in Vermont, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania – including the city of Pittsburgh – to adopt similar rights of nature laws. Those ordinances then helped influence the people of Ecuador to put legal rights for ecosystems in that country’s new constitution. The idea that nature, just like people, possesses inalienable rights has percolated up to the United Nations, which has considered a proposal to adopt a “Charter on the Rights of Mother Nature.”

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By Benjamin Wermund AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Updated: 11:42 p.m. Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Published: 8:43 p.m. Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Treated sewage sludge will not be dumped on a northeastern Williamson County farm as nearby residents had feared after the landowner canned an agreement that would have brought human-made leftovers from a nearby wastewater treatment facility to his pastures.

Synagro planned to deliver sludge — also known as biosolids — from a sewage treatment plant in Waller County, but the Houston-based company pulled its permit application this week. The move came after landowner Jim Schwertner sent a letter last week notifying the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state's environmental agency, that he was no longer interested in using the sludge on his farm.

Lisa Wheeler, a spokeswoman for the environmental agency, said the agency has not received Synagro's notice yet.

Residents around Schwertner's farm, just east of Granger, had spoken out against the potential dumping of the sludge on the piece of farmland, saying they were worried it could contaminate their well water and the air around the farm.

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Tuesday, 20 March 2012 14:36 By Sara Jerving, PR Watch | Report

A trade association known for using the terms "compost," "organic," and "biosolids" to describe sewage sludge is investing in a new public relations campaign to influence policymakers and the public. The US Composting Council(USCC), which was founded by the disposable diaper industry, will be expanding its long-standing efforts to "rebrand" sewage sludge, which is increasingly disposed of on agriculture crops and through garden centers without telling the public that their food is being grown in medical, industrial, and human waste.

Earlier this year, the USCC announced that it hired a PR firm, Colehour + Cohen, to help with the rebranding efforts and that it will also be increasing lobbying efforts.

The word “compost” traditionally has applied to vegetable material and scraps gardeners and farmers collect to re-use on crops and gardens. The USCC uses the term "compost" on an industrial scale to include sewage sludge, as well as other commercial and municipal waste.

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Whenever we flush the toilet, problems are created with sewage sludge.
Credit: ELLEN MOORHOUSE PHOTO

Trash Talk delves into some nasty stuff occasionally, but Toronto resident Maureen Reilly has been doing just that almost daily for 15 years. Her subject: sewage and sewage sludge.

We spoke to her over a year ago and thought it timely to check back to find out what’s happening with the waste we all help generate. Indeed, just 120 kilometres northwest of Toronto, Dundalk residents are challenging plans to build a facility that will take sludge, some from Toronto, mix it with septage and industrial waste, turn it into a liquidy fertilizer product for spreading on farmers’ land.

Reilly has immersed herself in disposal issues ever since she fought (successfully) to keep industrial paper sludge off pasture surrounding her country house near Cannington. Her experience with regulatory authorities, politicians and waste haulers changed her life.

Reilly has made it her mission to cull the media for information about sewage treatment technologies, sludge controversies, industry misbehaviour and failures, scientific studies, environmental contaminants, hygiene and health issues. She sends these reports, with critical commentary, to subscribers of her Sludge Watch email service in a dozen countries. (To join, Google Sludge Watch.)

She and many others believe spreading urban sewage sludge on agricultural land is a grave mistake given the contaminants and pathogens that end up in sewers because of our chemicalized and medicated lifestyles and effluents from hospitals and industry. The impacts of these substances on soils, health and ecosystems are not understood, and as Reilly says, “Of the 10 of thousands of toxic compounds that could be in sewage, the sludge is tested for less than 12.”

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FBI surveillance video of John Clark and James Rosendall, Jr. The video was gathered on Feb. 20, 2008 as part of the FBI’s investigation of Synagro Technologies’ sludge hauling contract with the city of Detroit.

Detroit— A corrupt former Detroit City Council aide should get a stiffer prison sentence because he caused more damage to the city than a drug dealer, a federal prosecutor said Wednesday.

The U.S. Attorney's Office is pushing for up to 16 months in prison for John Clark, who was caught on FBI surveillance video pocketing cash from a contractor. Clark was a onetime aide to Detroit City Councilman Kenneth Cockrel Jr.

"In a real sense, the damage done by the defendant's contribution to corruption in Detroit is far more serious than the damage done by some of the drug offenders sentenced in federal court who receive far more serious sentences of imprisonment," Assistant U.S. Attorney David Gardey wrote Wednesday.

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By Darree Sicher

Who Took A Dump On Your Dinner Plate?

Marcellus Shale drilling looks like big money for Pennsylvania, a tsunami of riches and fuel independence. But there is concern, not only about fresh water quality after the discharge of the known toxic chemicals used in the Marcellus Shale drilling process, but also with the land that will receive the remaining waste. Will the toxic chemicals used in the drilling process be made safe through the “treatment of waste water”?

Millions of people rely on Pennsylvania watershed areas to provide their drinking water via rivers, lakes, wells and purchased bottled water. Water is also necessary to sustain our food supply. Although Pennsylvania’s population is sixth in the nation, citizens throughout America will be affected by the contamination from the Marcellus Shale drilling – just follow the trail of rain water run-off and sewage sludge/biosolids, the equal opportunity pollution sources.

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