Sludge Watch ==> EPA agrees to reduce lead in children's products - what about sludge?

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

EPA has agreed to reduce lead in children's products and toys...but why do 
they continue to allow very high levels of lead to be spread on farm fields 
where we grow our food and where rural children live and work?

Here is Professor Stan Tackett:

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Dr. Stanford Tackett, a chemist and expert on lead contamination, became 
alarmed about sludge on the basis of its lead content alone. "The use of 
sewage sludge as a fertilizer poses a more significant lead threat to the 
land than did the use of leaded gasoline," he says. "All sewage sludges 
contain elevated concentrations of lead due to the nature of the treatment 
process. . . . Lead is a highly toxic and cumulative poison that can cause 
severe mental retardation or death. It interferes with the blood-forming 
process, vitamin D metabolism, kidney function, and the neurological 
process. From the standpoint of lead alone, sludge is 'safe' only if you are 
willing to accept a lowered IQ for the young children living in the sludge 
area. And what about the other toxins?"

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=You_say_biosolids%2C_I_say_sewage_sludge


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The little town of Brawley in Imperial Valley California has huge high 
levels of lead in their sewage sludge, which is land applied on field crops 
and seed crops and grazing lands in Yuma AZ.  And if you have ever seen the 
the dry conditions of these landscapes with 'dust devils' driven like mini 
tornados across the vista - you know that the leaded soils are being swept 
into homes and communities and organic farm fields far away.

If I bought alfalfa seed to make sprouts I would never know if it was 
harvested from these sludge-spread fields.

(small wonder sprouts are being hit with so many outbreaks since these 'seed 
crops' are treated as only animal feed)



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EPA Agrees To Reduce Lead in Products for Children Because of Health Hazard


April 16, 2007 — By John Heilprin, Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Companies that make or distribute toys, zippers and other 
children's products will face tougher government scrutiny to keep out any 
lead that could poison and kill children or harm their brain development.

The Environmental Protection Agency agreed in response to legal pressure to 
write up to 120 importing and manufacturing companies by the end of the 
month, instructing them to provide health and safety studies if any lead 
might be found in the products they make for children.

"Parents still need to be vigilant about the recalls on products marketed to 
children that might contain lead, and take those products away from children 
as soon as they are recalled," Jessica Frohman, co-chair of the Sierra 
Club's national toxics committee, said Sunday.

The EPA letters are part of a settlement it signed Friday with the Sierra 
Club and another advocacy group, Improving Kids' Environment. The agency 
also must tell the Consumer Product Safety Commission "that information EPA 
has reviewed raises questions about the adequacy of quality control measures 
by companies importing and/or distributing children's jewelry."

Lead, a highly toxic element, can cause severe nerve damage, especially in 
children. The EPA says lead emissions have dropped more than 90 percent 
since it was first listed as an air pollutant in 1976, mainly by removing 
lead from gasoline. Other sources of exposure to it include food and soil, 
solid waste, coal, oil, iron and steel production, lead smelters and tobacco 
smoke.

While the EPA can ban a substance such as lead, only the commission has the 
authority to ban a product. The Sierra Club last year petitioned EPA and the 
commission to monitor and ban the making of any children's necklaces, 
bracelets, rings and other jewelry that contains lead.

After the EPA rejected the petition, the two groups sued the EPA last year 
in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where 
the Sierra Club is headquartered.

The lawsuit also followed the death of 4-year-old Jarnell Brown of 
Minneapolis, who died last year from acute lead poisoning by swallowing part 
of a heart-shaped charm bracelet distributed by Reebok International Ltd. 
The child's death was ruled accidental, but Reebok recalled 300,000 of the 
silver-colored, Chinese-made bracelets found to be 90 percent lead that the 
company had given away with its shoes.

The attorneys general in California and Illinois sent letters to EPA 
supporting the groups' legal challenge.

In December, the commission began taking steps to ban, rather than recall as 
it has been doing, children's jewelry containing more than 0.06 percent lead 
by weight -- about one ounce for every 100 pounds. California and Chicago 
have adopted the same standard.

The commission's decision came after it had recalled more than a dozen 
products in the past two years out of concern about lead. Nationally, 
inexpensive toy jewelry made with lead or painted with lead paint is sold in 
vending machines and stores that sell mainly to immigrant communities.

More than 70 major U.S. retailers agreed last year to stop selling 
children's jewelry containing lead in California after another advocacy 
group, the Center for Environmental Health, and the state's attorney general 
sued in 2004.

The commission's biggest-ever recall was in 2004 and involved 150 million 
pieces of children's jewelry with unsafe lead levels.

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On the Net:

EPA: http://www.epa.gov/lead/

Sierra Club: http://www.sierraclub.org/healthycommunities/lead/