Sludge Watch ==> Virginia - Sludge - Ick Factor to Sick Factor

[Stevens.Rick at epamail.epa.gov]

Good morning Maureen,

Now that the RFP for incident investigation has been awarded, contract
and proposal details are being negotiated among parties concerned.

It was discussed recently at the exposure measurement workshop the
merits of doing just what you suggest below, going to certain areas
where complaints have been lodged (e.g., Virginia) and conducting
retrospective studies following exposure to land-applied sewage sludge.
While we have concerns about the trail having gone cold in retrospective
analyses, these studies may still have merit.

Prospective investigations (i.e., investigations during or immediately
after application) may yield results aimed at examining the link between
sewage sludge application and health or quality of life complaints.

The steps toward meaningful investigations include developing a process
for routine contacts, standardized reporting forms / formats, and a
process for addressing the health and safety concerns of the public and
the scientific community.

Rick Stevens, Biosolids Coordinator
Health and Ecological Criteria Division
Office of Science and Technology
Office of Water
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, 4304T
Washington, DC  20460
202-566-1135
202-566-1139 fax
stevens.rick at epa.gov



                                                                        
             maureen.reilly at s                                           
             ympatico.ca                                                
             Sent by:                                                To 
             sludgewatch-l-bo         Sludgewatch-l at list.web.net        
             unces at list.web.n                                        cc 
             et                                                         
                                                                Subject 
                                      Sludge Watch ==>  Virginia -      
             04/28/2006 09:34         Sludge - Ick Factor to Sick       
             AM                       Factor                            
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        


Sludgewatch Admin:

Yoo Hoo!  EPA ... yes you!  Could you send that "Rapid Response Team"
over
to these folks in Virginia?
Yes...the team that was voted The Most Critical issue facing sewage
sludge
'biosolids' three years ago at the special WERF symposium on sludge
issues.
The team that doesn't exist...

...............................................................................................


Daily Press

Newport News, Virginia

April 26, 2006 Wednesday


SLUDGE: FROM ICK FACTOR TO SICK FACTOR

By TAMARA DIETRICH Daily Press


A year ago when I wrote about people-poo dumped on farmland in Isle of
Wight, I fretted mostly about the Ick Fac-tor -- the creepy notion of
consuming vegetables or milk or meat that, not too long before, had been

nourished by huma-nure.
I've grown beyond that. Today, as Surry and other Virginia residents
living
near land fertilized by Class B sludge wheeze through pneumonia, hack up

phlegm, salve chemical burns, wipe at rheumy eyes, gag on fumes and have

chunks of lung removed because of mystery infections, my focus has
shifted.

Now it's the Sick Factor -- those strange illnesses that tend to crop up
in
sludge-treated areas with such regularity that they coined a term for
it:
sludge syndrome.

And it's the Runoff Factor -- when biosolids laden with human and
industrial
toxins and metals seep into ground-water or trickle into streams and
brooks,
the James River, and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay, which is already
imper-iled by pollutants.

There are so many sides to this important issue that I wish we could
have a
reasoned debate about it. But that would require having enough good
information to make it not a colossal waste of everybody's time.

Instead, we are all ignorant about the true effects of sludge on people,

especially once it's been dumped on farmland and forests. The reason is
simple enough:

"Nobody has been studying if people are getting sick from sludge or
not,"
explains Cornell University scientist Ellen Harrison in a story Sunday
by
Daily Press reporter Sabine Hirschauer.

It's that ignorance that federal, state and industry officials count on.

That ignorance which allows the U.S. Envi-ronmental Protection Agency
and
the Virginia Health Department to insist that biosolids are safe on
account
of so little documented evidence otherwise.

It's all cold comfort to people such as Sandra Wyatt, whose lungs began
to
deteriorate last summer after dump trucks started hauling biosolids past
her
Surry County home to a nearby farm. It grew so intolerable that Wyatt
had to
abandon her house.

According to Hirschauer's story, Wyatt's doctor wrote that her lung
disease
was "clearly in temporal conjunction with the sewage waste disposition."

Wyatt didn't ask the state health commissioner for a second opinion, but
he
gave her one anyway: "Odor alone, while offensive to sensitive
individuals,"
wrote Robert Stroube, "will not directly affect your health."

Stroube would be more convincing if he offered to move his own family
into
Wyatt's empty house for a while to prove his point.

Like Stroube, the biosolids industry claims sludge is safe, or else its
employees would be dropping like flies.

Farmers insist it's safe, but their advocacy is colored by the fact that

they get humanure for free, saving them $40 to $70 an acre in fertilizer

costs.
The state maintains it's safe, which is why it keeps issuing permits for

even more dumping. In 2004, more than 232,000 tons of sewage sludge were

spread on about 50,000 acres in Virginia. We not only dump our own -- we

take in sludge from other states, too.
Advocates insist that treated human waste is not only safe, but adds
nutrients to the soil. They paint a rosy picture.
But if it's so darned safe, so beneficial, why don't Texas, Maryland,
Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., keep theirs? Why aren't they slinging

their own nutritious "night soil" on their own farms and forests? Why
aren't
lawmakers there bagging it to spread on their lawns? Why wrangle deals
to
ship it to Virginia, which, according to Harrison, now ties Pennsylvania
for
the most sludge-related health complaints in the country?
One state official, alarmed at hundreds of Virginians claiming that
sludge
made them sick, joined a petition calling for the EPA to stop the
spreading
of treated sludge.
The EPA refused.
Why? The same old circular logic: Because there isn't enough evidence to
do
so.
The EPA isn't inclined to look for any, either. This is a shameful
abdication of its responsibility for human health. It's years overdue,
but
the EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should get
off
the pot and find out definitively if sludge is safe.

Until they do, state lawmakers should give cities and counties the right
to
refuse to take in sludge from other areas. They should properly fund
oversight of current sewage sludge applications and runoff. They should
take
health com-plaints seriously and investigate them.

I realize that, in a state where lawmakers killed a bill that would
simply
have noted those properties where sludge is spread, expecting real
action on
the subject is almost cowpie in the sky naivete.
As so our state remains a dumping ground in every worst sense, our
politicos
dither and dally, cover their eyes and ears and hold their noses, while
Virginia circles down the drain.

Tamara Dietrich can be reached at tdietrich at dailypress.com or at
247-7892. *


---------------------------
This message was sent to you via the Sludge Watch list serv, the list
serv of the Sludge Watch Working Group of the Ontario Environment
Network Waste Caucus.  This list serv is maintained by H2infO - The
Water Information Network.

For more information visit www.H2infO.org or www.oen.ca

_______________________________________________
Sludgewatch-l mailing list
Sludgewatch-l at list.web.net
http://list.web.net/lists/listinfo/sludgewatch-l