Sludge Watch ==> BSE:Canadian editorials - we need to manage wastewater sludges

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

This is quite a coup! Sludgewatch has been advocating tight regulation of 
slaughterhouse and rendering plant sludges to stop the spread of BSE.  Now 
major editorials across Canada are saying the same thing.

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

Toronto Star / Montreal Gazette

EDITORIAL
Justified caution on beef by-products



Jul 16, 2007 04:30 AM

Some Canadian stockmen and slaughterhouse operators say new federal rules on 
what can be fed to cattle are a "bureaucratic nightmare." But the "enhanced" 
regulations are fully justified by the urgent national interest in keeping 
our $4-billion-a-year beef industry in good health.

Under the ban, so-called "specified risk materials" – including the skull, 
brain, eyes, tonsils, spinal cord and certain nerves – must be removed from 
slaughtered cattle with special equipment and hauled away in dedicated 
trucks to be destroyed or somehow sequestered.

Until now, these parts have been converted, with other slaughterhouse waste, 
into fertilizer, chicken feed and pet food. It's not unknown for such 
products to be fed to cattle, either. The cattle don't know about this 
distasteful practice, but the federal rules are well justified all the same 
because these parts can harbour the prions that cause mad cow disease, an 
ailment that is medically horrifying and economically almost as much of a 
nightmare.

Canada's trading partners slam their border shut to Canadian beef at the 
first sign of mad cow disease. Sometimes this solicitude for public health 
masks a certain special treatment for other countries' own beef producers, 
but who can blame anyone – Canadian consumers or foreign governments – for 
shunning the risk of mad cow?

The federal government is unlikely to budge from the requirements laid out 
in the ban. It is facing a class-action lawsuit brought by cattlemen 
accusing Ottawa of negligence in the mad cow crisis. As much as $7 billion 
in revenue was lost after the U.S. shut its borders to Canadian beef in 
2003, after an infected cow was found in Alberta.

Canada was slow to ban the feeding of cattle by-products to other cattle, 
taking that step only in 1997, and then the ban proved less than 100 per 
cent effective. Canada confirmed its 10th case of mad cow disease in May, in 
a dairy cow born after the ban supposedly came into effect.

So Ottawa is proceeding properly now – and must take steps to make sure the 
new rules are carefully enforced. Then there would remain only one issue: 
What to do with the waste water produced when rendered parts are squeezed 
dry? Nothing should be left to chance in a matter so important to both 
public health and a big industry.

This is an edited version of an editorial that appeared Friday in the 
Gazette, Montreal.

http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/235798