Sludge Watch ==> Senate Plans Hearing on Sludge

[Maureen Reilly]

April 14, 2008
Senate Plans Hearing on Sludge
By JOHN HEILPRIN Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will 
investigate the government's funding of research in poor, black 
neighborhoods on whether sewage sludge might combat lead poisoning in 
children, its chairman said Monday.

The Associated Press reported Sunday that the mix of human and industrial 
wastes from sewage treatment plants was spread on the lawns of nine 
low-income families in Baltimore and a vacant lot next to an elementary 
school in East St. Louis, Ill., to test whether lead in the soil from 
chipped paint and car exhausts would bind to it.

The research conducted in 2001 and 2002 was funded by the Department of 
Housing and Urban Development, the Agriculture Department and the 
Environmental Protection Agency.

The Senate committee said hearings on the health impact of using sludge as a 
fertilizer and the government's promotion of the practice over the past 
three decades would be held before the end of summer.

"Our hearing will include an investigation of the risks associated with 
application of sludge in neighborhoods as reportedly took place in 
Baltimore," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the committee's chairman.

The head of the Maryland chapter of the NAACP asked Maryland Attorney 
General Douglas Gansler to investigate the circumstances of the research and 
whether participants in the Baltimore study gave informed consent.

"These experiments harken back to the infamous Tuskegee experiments" in 
which syphilis treatment was denied to black men in order to study the 
illness, Gerald Stansbury, president of the Maryland Conference of the 
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said in letter 
to Gansler.

Researchers said the families were assured the sludge was safe, but were not 
told that there have been some health concerns over the use of sludge.

The study concluded that phosphate and iron in sludge can increase the 
ability of soil to trap more harmful metals, including lead, cadmium and 
zinc, causing the combination to pass safely through a child's body if 
eaten. Other researchers disputed that finding. An AP review of grant 
documents found no evidence of any medical follow-up.

Stansbury said he also wanted to know more about the role that Johns Hopkins 
University and the Kennedy Krieger Institute, both in Baltimore, played in 
the study.

The institute has referred questions to Johns Hopkins University, where 
spokeswoman Joann Rodgers said a review board within its medical school had 
approved the study and the consent forms provided to families that 
participated.

Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for Gansler, said the attorney general's 
office would look into the matter.

Associated Press writer Alex Dominguez in Baltimore contributed to this 
report.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gbpCMPX9_kRtYkL1Yv9-OzuVxFfQD901UF900