Sludge Watch ==> Sludge concerns spread across rural Pennsylvania

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludge concerns spread across rural Pa.


By: Evan Brandt, ebrandt at pottsmerc.com
06/17/2007

For some, spring is not the time to stop and smell the flowers so much as 
the time for the onslaught of another seasonal odor --- sludge.
Regularly used as a fertilizer on farm fields for some 20 years, the 
leftover byproduct of treating what we flush down the toilet is hailed by 
some as an environmental boon to financially struggling farmers and an 
example of recycling waste.

For others, sludge is a waste so toxic it was banned from being dumped in 
the oceans and is poorly regulated by federal and state governments in 
league with the businesses who make a profit by trucking it to farm fields.

Here in the tri-county area, two farms --- one in North Coventry and one 
near Gilbertsville --- have become the flashpoint in an ongoing national 
debate which revolves around a central question --- how safe is sludge?

The short answer is, that depends on who you talk to.


The farmer's helper
In North Coventry, the coming of spring means Charlie Marshall's thoughts 
turn to preparing the soil for planting.

To do that, he spreads sewage sludge on his fields, which are within sight 
and certainly within smell of several hundred homes, Routes 100 and 422 and 
the Coventry Mall.
He uses the sludge produced by one of Philadelphia's wastewater treatment 
plants, he says, because he is trying to stay in business, and sludge is 
free.

He has been farming on Laurel Locks Farm, land purchased in 1905 by his 
grandfather, since 1991 when his father died.
Farming in this modern age "is a brutally difficult business," Marshall said 
during a recent interview.
"You are growing a commodity in competition with crops grown in Indiana and 
the Oley Valley, and in the past I have lost prodigious amounts of money 
farming," he said.

Marshall said he is "much closer" to making a profit on his farm these days 
and says using sludge is a crucial part of the business plan because of the 
money it saves.
"To run a farm and grow corn you need nitrogen, and using fertilizer made 
from petro-chemicals is prohibitively expensive," Marshall said.

So he turned to sludge, which he said he has used for 20 years without 
complaint from neighbors of fields he farms in Union Township and for five 
to seven years on the North Coventry property.
"I've tried everything from chicken manure to spoiled sileage, and nothing 
works out quite so well as sludge," Marshall said.

http://www.pottstownmercury.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18486882&BRD=1674&PAG=461&dept_id=18041&rfi=6