[getsmart-l] Residents concerned with sludge spreading, run-off

[John O'Gorman]

" . . . they’re just allowed to go ahead and dump all over the fields." Nelson says 

http://www.hcfa.on.ca/cached.asp?id=1035

Residents concerned with sludge spreading, run-off

By Lynne Pinnegar 
September 7th, 2007 Arthur Enterprise News

Residents of Wellington North are “being drowned in treated human waste with tankers lining the side of our highways to spread this sludge on our fields,” says Shannon Nelson of RR 2, Arthur in a letter to the editor in this week’s Enterprise News. The letter is a copy of one she sent to Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory about a topic she hopes will become an election issue this fall. “I figured if sent it to the government, I’d get the regular government line because they’re the ones who have approved it,” Nelson said. She and her husband spoke several times to Ministry of Environment officials when the sludge was being spread on fields across the road from where they live on Highway 6 between Kenilworth and Arthur a few weeks ago. A Ministry representative “actually came out, spoke to my husband and said they (the owner of the fields where the sludge was being spread) had their permits in place and they’re all perfectly legal,” she said. Nelson said she was particularly concerned about the sludge being spread across from her home “because they tiled their fields and now some of their tile drains into our ditch.” The Nelsons and two other neighbors shared the cost of cleaning out and deepening the ditch in front of their homes to facilitate the tiling across the highway. “Now we get run-off from the fields into our ditch, several hundred feet from our well. I’m concerned about the ditch as well as the regular groundwater flow that could affect our wells. We weren’t notified prior to this happening... they’re just allowed to go ahead and dump all over the fields.” Nelson says she is a concerned citizen “who sees truckloads of this treated waste being dumped on land in our community” and wonders how it will affect people living there. “I would like some answers and assurances that 20 years from now we’re not going to be affected by something in this treated waste that wasn’t able to be treated,” she said. "I’d like someone to provide us with evidence that all of the pharmaceuticals people have taken have been neutralized when some of this ‘fertilizer’ ends up in our groundwater and, potentially, in some of the foods we eat.” Last week the sludge spreading moved to the other side of Kenilworth, on land across from Maas Park Drive. Lesley Dallaire, who lives across from the fields on which the sludge is being spread, contacted the Ministry of the Environment and was also told that the farmer had all the necessary permits. However, she and other neighbors are concerned about run-off because those fields, too, have been tile drained. “If it truly is safe, then fine, but I’d like actual facts and long-term proof of this,” Nelson said. “That’s the kind of assurance I want to receive from our government officials who are regulating this.”
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