Sludge Watch ==> Warkworth Ontario - sludged residents urge health study

[Maureen Reilly]

http://www.eastnorthumberland.com/article.php?id=1748

Health study urged on biosolids



Photo Paul Dalby
Wayne and Diane Cooke pictured on their 68-acre farm just east of Warkworth. 
Now they may move to save their health.



Photo Paul Dalby
Retired RN Linda Donaldson and husband Roy sold their home to escape 
biosolids, breaking a 150-year tie with the land.



Photo Paul Dalby
Biosolids, trucked in from Cobourg is spread on farm land throughout Trent 
Hills. The sludge fertilizer is free to farmers.

by Paul Dalby
The Independent
A leading toxicologist has called for an urgent study on the potential 
health hazards posed by biosolids – or human sewage sludge – that is being 
spread on farming fields in Northumberland County.

The biosolids, used as a free fertilizer, come from the Cobourg Water and 
Waste Treatment plant.

As well as containing human excretia, the sludge can also contain traces of 
household chemicals, detergents from washing machines, heavy metals from 
industry, synthetic hormones from birth control pills, and dioxins, a group 
of compounds that have been linked to cancer.

Modern treatment methods employed at the Cobourg plant can eliminate more 
than 95 per cent of the pathogens in concentrated Class B sludge.

Bill Peeples, the manager of the plant, states the mostly-liquid waste that 
emerges from the biological process that’s used to treat the town’s 
residential, commercial and industrial sewage is “completely safe.”

Mr. Peeples said the material is “monitored so closely” as to its content, 
application and incorporation into the soil “that there’s nothing to worry 
about.”

“It’s a stew and you cannot possibly know from one day to the next exactly 
what’s in that stew,” said Dr. Anne Mildon. “It all depends on what comes 
down the pipe to the sewage plant.”

About 120,000 tonnes of sewage biosolids are spread on 6,000 acres of 
Ontario farmland each year, according to the Ministry of the Environment.

But Dr. Mildon, of Toronto, is the first to call for an official health 
study of the practice and its potential hazards. She is now treating four 
couples from the Warkworth area who all live next to fields where biosolids 
have been spread in the past year.

“They need to do a study of several people living close to fields being 
sprayed before the biosolids are put on, then re-test them again afterwards 
to see what changes are in their health,” Dr. Mildon said.

The four couples, all interviewed by The Independent, have experienced 
chronic diarrhea, lung problems, headaches, frequent bouts of pneumonia and 
abnormally high levels of metals in their blood.

“Without a scientific study, you cannot definitely link their health 
problems directly to the biosolids but I have a growing sensation in my 
stomach that they are probably connected,” Dr. Mildon told The Independent.

Dr. Mildon is a 35 year veteran of the toxicology field in Canada and 
developed the Mildon-French Equation or air quality index used in 
underground mines around the world – as well as the tunnel under the English 
Channel.

She also led the four-year study on radiation-contaminated soil in Port Hope 
back in the 1990s. Coincidentally in recent years, Port Hope has stopped the 
practice of spreading biosolids on agricultural land.

Dr. Mildon said this week all of her affected patients come from one area, 
Warkworth. “They’re all non-smokers and were in very good health until this 
past year. Then suddenly they get very sick and their blood tests show 
incredibly high levels of various metals.”

Dr. Mildon said she could not discuss details of individual cases because of 
health confidentiality rules but said that one of the patients’ blood tests 
came back with a cadmium level of 117.5 nmo/litre. The normal level is 
supposed to be between zero and 8.9 nmo/litre

“There is no way I can explain that unless she was digging in the stuff. I 
don’t know how it got into her.”

Dr. Mildon said she suspects the four couples have likely ingested airborne 
particles blown across the biosolid-treated fields. “They are all retired 
and spend a lot of time out in their gardens or on their farms.

“It’s safe to say like most people at their age they are all mouth-breathers 
and they are swallowing the particulates right into their stomachs and 
lungs.”

Dr. Mildon said it’s easy to understand why certain farmers, but not all, 
use the biosolids on their land. “Many farmers are having a rough time and 
if you are offered the biosolids free of charge, it may be hard to turn 
down.”

The four Warkworth couples brought their concerns about biosolids in a 
delegation to County Council last week. Their presentation was received 
without any comment by councillors.

Earlier this year they met with Trent Hills Deputy Mayor Dean Peters who 
then requested a new bylaw to impose tighter controls on the use of 
biosolids, including replacing spraying with a safer soil injection system. 
The bylaw has never been drafted.

Now the four couples are taking their case to the Chief Public Health 
Officer of Ontario, Dr. George Pasut.

A member of the affected group, Wendy Deavitt, also wrote to Premier Dalton 
McGuinty about the health issues connected with spreading biosolids on 
agricultural land.

In a written reply, just received by Ms. Deavitt, Premier McGuinty said: Our 
government shares your concerns about the threat this practice poses to our 
environment and our health.”

But the Premier said he was relying on “a science-based approach” to protect 
our drinking water.

Premier McGuinty’s comments do little to ease the concerns shared by the 
four couples – Wendy and William Deavitt, Lilias and Roy Donaldson, Linda 
and Roger Donaldson, and Diane and Wayne Cooke.

All four depended on well water on their properties, which until last year 
had a clean bill of health. Now they are badly contaminated and the families 
have been told not to drink the water.

“The sludge from Cobourg has made us very, very ill,” said Linda Donaldson, 
64, a retired RN and former hospital administrator. “It is a nightmare.”

Last year she and her husband Roy were so sick they finally moved away from 
the land that her family has settled on since the 1850s. Struck by chronic 
diarrhea, Roy had lost 20 pounds in weight in just weeks. They now live in 
Campbellford.

“It broke my heart to move out of the house but every time they sprayed 
biosolids on the fields across the road, we got sick all over again,” Ms. 
Donaldson said. We just couldn’t take it anymore.”

Diane and Wayne Cooke may soon follow suit and sell the “dream home” they 
built for themselves 18 years ago on their 68-acre farm. “I was never sick a 
day in my life, we were farmers all our life,” she said. “Now every time the 
wind blows after they have sprayed, we get really sick. It feels like a 
nightmare.”

The Cookes now travel every month to Toronto to receive infusions of 
vitamins and minerals from Dr. Mildon to help remove the toxins from their 
bodies. Their livers and immune systems have been seriously compromised.

“I used to walk my dogs every day but now I have trouble breathing and I’m 
having to use a puffer,” Ms. Cooke, 57, a retired insurance broker, said.

Wendy Deavitt, who lives with her family on the west side of Warkworth, says 
she feels trapped by the biosolids spraying. “I’m too sick to stay in the 
house but I can’t sell it either.

The Deavitt family moved out to their eight-acre property six years ago. “We 
loved Trent Hills and we thought we had found a piece of paradise,” she 
said. “Now I have been exposed to high levels of lead, barium and potassium 
in my blood and I’m told my kidneys are not functioning properly.”

“Someone has got to stop this insanity,” Ms. Deavitt said.