Sludge Watch ==> The Scientist : Snyder - Sludge Fighter

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

The Journal The Scientist has recognized Caroline Snyder PhD for her work to 
expose the shifty practice of the land application of sludge.
Her article, referenced below, is a brave and thorough expose of the 
conspiracy to pollute farms with sewage sludge.

Her friends, sludge victims, and collegues applaud Caroline for her tireless 
research.
...............................................................



 http://www.the-scientist.com/podcasts/theweek/

Click "Table of Content" of the November issue.  Scroll down to
"Notebook"  Click "Snyder Sludge Fighter"


By Kerry Grens



NOTEBOOK Snyder, sludge fighter



It was sometime in the late 1990s that Caroline Snyder first read news 
reports about a couple in Greenland, NH, who were blaming recycled sewage 
sludge - also known as biosolids - for the death of their son. Although she 
was an environmental scientist, Snyder didn't really know anything about 
sludge, but the story piqued her interest because she had recently retired 
to New Hampshire after 20 years of teaching at the Rochester Institute of 
Technology (RIT).

Snyder soon discovered that the US Congress had banned dumping sludge into 
the ocean in the late 1980s, and the Environmental Protection Agency had 
drafted new rules allowing such sludge to be used as fertilizer. Although 
she was experienced in environmental activism, sludge was something new to 
her, and different. At the time, she was working to draft a bill that would 
prohibit aerial pesticide spraying on timber, "but concern about pesticides 
is not really very controversial," Snyder writes in an E-mail. "It is shared 
by the scientific community and all major environmental groups. Concern 
about sludge issues, however, is very controversial."

Urged by a friend in the New Hampshire legislature who was concerned about 
sludge, Snyder decided to dig into the issue. At that time residents in 
several states were claiming that recycled sewage sludge was damaging their 
health, and a few scientists were voicing their concerns as well. (According 
to later press reports, the autopsy of the Greenland man was inconclusive, 
and a lawsuit against the biosolids company settled for an undisclosed 
amount before going to trial.) Much of the soil science world, however, and 
the EPA maintained that the practice was safe.

Snyder felt equipped to tackle the complexities of sludge: Her RIT classes 
had emphasized the political side of environmental science and looked at the 
influence of law, industry, and economics. As she scrutinized the EPA's 
policy on biosolids, Snyder concluded that there was "a terrible corporate 
influence over science." She founded Citizens for Sludge-Free Land and began 
speaking on behalf of the Sierra Club as a sludge expert.

Her argument against biosolids was fueled by several articles in Nature by 
David Lewis, an EPA scientist at the time, who criticized EPA policy. 
Subsequently, Lewis claims, the EPA drained his funds and squeezed him out 
of the agency. Lewis's whistleblowing story received media attention, and it 
also struck a chord with Snyder. "I find it abhorrent. I'm a naturalized 
citizen, a refugee from World War II. I know what happens in communist and 
fascist countries," she says. "The scientific community should be outraged 
that scientific whistleblowers are not getting protections they deserve."

As Lewis became bogged down with legal problems (see "The Plight of the 
Whistleblower," in the January 17, 2005, issue of The Scientist), Snyder 
stepped in to help. In 2002 she surprised his lawyer with a $50,000 check to 
cover his legal expenses. And as Lewis struggled to keep his research 
afloat, Snyder took over writing what had been a joint project to expose 
what they say is the EPA's unprotective sludge policy.

Lewis says the resulting paper, published in the October-December 2005 issue 
of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health 
(IJOEH), is frequently quoted by lawmakers and sludge activists. (It had 
been cited only once in scientific journals tracked by ISI by mid-October of 
this year.) In it Snyder takes broad swipes at the EPA, claiming the agency 
forged an alliance with municipalities and sludge-management companies, 
whose "primary purpose was to control the flow of scientific information, 
manipulate public opinion, and cover up problems."

Lewis says Snyder was brave to enter the sludge arena, particularly in light 
of his own plight. But the response to Snyder's claims in her IJOEH article 
has "very gentlemanly," says the journal's editor, Joe LaDou. In May LaDou 
published a response from the Water Environment Federation (WEF) and the 
upcoming January issue will carry a letter from an EPA scientist. The WEF's 
letter states that "40 years of concerted research and experience with 
biosolids recycling have found 'negligible risk,' as a 1996 National Academy 
of Sciences review stated."

But Snyder won't be satisfied until the definitive safety study has been 
done. Until then, she intends to continue spending her retirement on the 
front lines of the sludge debate. For her, retirement is the perfect time to 
act boldly. "Very few scientists are willing to speak out. Somebody like me 
who has nothing to lose can speak out."


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


 To read Caroline's excellent article:
The Dirty Work of "Recycling" America's Sewage Sludge
Caroline Snyder, PhD


http://www.ijoeh.com/pfds/IJOEH_1104_Snyder.pdf






An entire issue of the International Journal of Occupational and 
Environmental Health (IJOEH) was recently devoted to the topic of corruption 
of science by corporate interests.


http://www.ijoeh.com/archive_01.html#1104