As part of a comprehensive plan to recycle more of the state’s solid waste stream, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed to greatly increase the rate of spreading sewage sludge on New York’s farmland.
Sewage sludge is a semi-solid mix of human excrement, toilet paper, household products that go down drains and industrial waste that water treatment plants produce. It’s expensive to dispose of and nationally about 60% of this partially treated waste product is sold or even given away as “biosolid” fertilizer because it contains nutrients for plant growth.
Meanwhile, the State of Maine proposed and passed legislation to do the exact opposite – to ban sewage sludge fertilizer from being spread on farms after environmental officials discovered very high levels of per-and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS) in water, soil, crops, and animals on farms where biosolids had been spread. High PFAS levels were also detected in the milk from cows pastured on treated fields.
PFAS are a class of about 12,000 chemicals used to make thousands of consumer and industrial products resistant to water, stain and grease. They are called “forever chemicals” because they never break down, and they are linked to serious illnesses, including several types of cancer, liver disease, kidney disease, autoimmune disorders, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, and damage to the health of pregnant women and babies.
Currently, Maine is investigating several hundred farms with fields where PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge was spread in recent years. If these farms test positive for PFAS, the land will be considered permanently contaminated and banned for agricultural use of any kind. Several farms have already been shuttered, leaving farmers in financial ruin.
PFAS are arguably one of today’s most significant public health issues as they are ubiquitous and to date very poorly controlled. Regulatory agencies are scrambling to set standards for drinking water and to limit commercial and consumer usage, but this is no easy task. PFAS compounds are carcinogenic in just a few parts per trillion. That’s comparable to just a few grains of salt in an Olympic sized swimming pool.
While New York is not testing for PFAS contamination on our farms, random testing of biosolids in several wastewater treatment plants across the state found PFAS in every one. Nevertheless, the Department of Environmental Conservation has not tested the land where this sludge was spread nor has it informed the landowners or farmers of the risk. And it only recently decided to expand its testing of sewage sludge for PFAS.
Farmers in New York today can easily and legally purchase sewage, sludge-based fertilizer and compost products from private companies. Gardeners, landscapers, municipalities and school districts can do so as well. The DEC provides no warning.
In 2021, New York joined the growing national trend of prioritizing soil health with the Soil Health and Climate Resiliency Act that “declared the policy of the Legislature to promote the health and resiliency of New York’s agricultural soils, including the biological, physical, and chemical components of such soils, to sustain agricultural plants and animals, produce a healthy, affordable food supply, promote climate resilient farming and the reduction of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, and further protect and promote natural resources and the health, safety and welfare of the people of this state.” New York State’s current proposal flies in the face of this important and protective declaration.
Sierra Club’s Atlantic Chapter has produced a comprehensive report outlining the toxicity of PFAS and the irreversible impacts PFAS contamination will have on agriculture and drinking water sources in New York State and the urgency to take protective actions immediately to prevent any spreading of biosolids or sewage sludge on farmland in New York. Their most urgent actions include, but are not limited to:
- Banning the spreading of sewage sludge in any form on fields and farms and end the production, sale and distribution of any products containing sewage sludge due to strong evidence of their widespread contamination with PFAS.
- Monitoring and testing of wastewater treatment plant effluent for PFAS.
- Prohibiting wastewater treatment plants from accepting landfill leachate, unless PFAS contaminants are destroyed or removed beforehand.
- Banning the practice of mixing food waste (a relatively clean organic feedstock) with sewage sludge.
- Directing the DEC to test for PFAS in soil, water and agricultural products grown where sewage sludge-based soil amendments are known to have been spread.
To see the full version of the report, visit https://atlantic2.sierraclub.org
If you feel passionate about the safety of our water and food, please contact Gov. Hochul by phone (518-474-8390) or e-mail www.governor.ny.gov/content/governor-contact-form and tell her of the dire consequences of her proposal to address our solid waste excess by spreading PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge across our state.
Column: ARE WE CONSUMING SEWAGE SLUDGE?
By Gary Feldman – Great Neck Record
February 9, 2020
Everything flushed down the toilet or dumped by industry, whatever runs off into our waterways, all becomes sewage sludge. This includes toxic chemicals sprayed on our food crops, human waste, animal waste from factory farms, pharmaceuticals, hospital disposals, bacteria, viruses, jet fuel and plastics. You name it, it can enter the public water supply.
Due to weak laws that favor industry rather than the health of the consumer, and antiquated filtration systems, the abundance of toxins overwhelms the means of eliminating them. So where do they end up? In the water we drink and wash with and use to fertilize our crops.
If everyone cared to understand what has happened to our food supply, who owns and controls it and the ongoing interventions in nature’s process, we would understand more of what is behind many of the major developments and crises occurring in the United States and around the world.
Gene-edited plants, and even gene-edited factory farm animals, are being hyped as the answer to many of our food and agricultural problems, including the need to feed the ever-growing global population. The same promises were made back in the 1990s, during the first generation of genetically modified (GM) food crops.
Three decades later, 99 percent of all GM crop seeds are engineered in labs to have two distinctive traits. They are herbicide tolerant, to enable the plants to survive being heavily sprayed with highly toxic weedkillers. They are also tolerant to sprays that are used to kill insects, and in the process, our pollinators—Honey Bees, Monarch Butterflies and others that are being decimated.
What did all this technology accomplish?
Herbicidal toxins engineered into GM crop seeds have led to ever-escalating herbicide use, and the dangerous spread of herbicide-resistant “superweeds.” What is the chief herbicide ingredient? Glyphosate, classified by the World Health Organization as a probable carcinogen. You may know of it as “Roundup,” the popular weed killer that many Long
Islanders use on their lawns. Where does Roundup wind up? Roundup runs into our groundwater and aquifers.
Where did all this lead?
Findings point to ways, previously unknown, that bacteria may become resistant to life-saving antibiotics. The antibiotic genes that are inserted into genetically modified food crop seeds are now able to withstand our primitive conventional wastewater treatment plants. These findings are contained in a research paper, “Researchers find persistence of antibiotic-resistant GMO genes in sewage sludge,” a Duke University study published in The Journal of Biotechnology and Bioengineering in 2019, as well as many other journals.
For example, about 130 crop lines, which include an abundance of GM crop varieties of fruit, vegetables and grains, do contain such genes. When people consume lab-created food containing these genes, this genetic material moves through our digestive systems, which in turn is released into the environment and, of course, into our wastewater treatment plants. Our local municipal wastewater treatment plants are only as good as their filtration systems.
Antibiotic resistance, adopted by bacteria in response to interactions with the multitude of pharmaceuticals taken by the population as well as those given to animals on factory farms, ever-increasing around the world, tremendously threatens the ability to treat simple common infections and illnesses.
For instance, staphylococcus bacteria in sewage are stressed, but not destroyed, when they come in contact with antibiotics. The result is more antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
What is done with all this waste?
“Biosolid” is an industrial term for sewage sludge that has been treated in a wastewater facility. About half of the biosolids produced in the U.S. from wastewater treatments are used as agricultural fertilizers, providing a potential pathway through our entire environment for toxic waste. Farmers who use biosolids and sewage to water and fertilize crops, unfortunately, are not required to disclose this information to consumers. When undisclosed, their land is being polluted in secret.
Cattle used for human food are fed biosolids, which is highly contaminated feed. Cattle that forage on biosolids are taken to feedlots and factory farms before anybody even knows it. If the animal can walk into the feedlot, the processors are going to use the animal as consumption, no matter how sick it is.
Sewage was designed to be put in landfills, not on America’s farmlands. The Environmental Protection Agency documents and admits to the fact that regulatory authorities claim they don’t know for sure what is being dumped.
Our ecosystem is at the mercy of the biosolids industry as heavy metals, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, fracking chemicals and many more toxins have become ubiquitous in our water. Therefore, everything and everyone that lives off of anything that grows is threatened with disease, death and probable extinction.
Gary Feldman, nutrition and environment writer, teacher – Port Washington Union Free School District Continuing Education program. garyteach1@gmail.com