Sludge Watch ==> NAACP questions sludge study methods - 2 stories

[Maureen Reilly]

NAACP questions sludge study methods
Fertilizer made from waste was applied for lead protection
Michael Eugene Johnson

Michael Eugene Johnson (foreground) of the Black United Fund of Greater 
Maryland and Marvin "Doc" Cheatham, president of the Baltimore NAACP, speak 
at a news conference in Upton. (Sun photo by André F. Chung / April 22, 
2008)

By Dennis O'Brien | Sun reporter
    April 23, 2008

The Maryland NAACP questioned last night the methods used in a 
government-funded study in which fertilizer made from treated human and 
industrial waste was put on lawns of East Baltimore rowhouses.

"We don't want to do this kind of work at the expense of turning our 
children into guinea pigs," Marvin L. "Doc" Cheatham Sr., president of the 
Baltimore chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored 
People, said at a news conference.

The study, conducted by researchers from the Kennedy Krieger Institute and 
the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, involved spreading 
compost, made from human and industrial wastes, on nine yards in a 
predominantly poor black neighborhood in East Baltimore to see whether it 
reduced the risks of exposure to lead in the soil.

The compost was applied, and participants in the study were given food 
coupons as an incentive.

Related links

    *
      Suspicion over Hopkins experiment still simmers just under the surface
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      Sun coverage: Sludge study in Baltimore
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At the news conference at an Upton church, other speakers said Hopkins 
officials have been reluc- tant to come forward with details of the study, 
including the specific neighborhood where the study was conducted and the 
names of the residents affected.

"Why did they pick this area? Why are the poor always being picked on for 
these kinds of tests? We just need more information," said Michael Eugene 
Johnson, state director of the Black United Fund.

The news conference also included Gerald Stansbury, state president of the 
NAACP, and Sen. Nathaniel J. McFadden, whose district includes the area 
where the study was conducted.

Stansbury questioned why researchers used a residential neighborhood. "Why 
didn't they just perform the test in a sandbox or a laboratory?" he asked.

Stansbury asked that anyone who lived at properties where the study was 
conducted call his office or e-mail him.

The study has turned into a public relations nightmare for the institutions. 
The problems began with an Associated Press article published last week in 
The Sun and elsewhere, and led to criminal investigations and U.S. Senate 
hearings.

In response, officials at Kennedy Krieger and the Bloomberg school released 
a five-page description of the study this week, made the schools' top 
administrators available to the news media, and discussed the launch of 
advertising and lobbying campaigns to promote their case to the public.

Officials at both institutions emphasized that community leaders were 
consulted before the study, that participants were fully informed and that 
compost material is safe and widely used. Officials said there was no reason 
to monitor the health of residents because the compost posed no risk.

The cost of replacing soil is prohibitive in all but the most contaminated 
areas, they said. Confidentiality rules prohibit releasing the identities of 
the residents who lived in the homes.

They also noted that most of the work on the study was conducted in 2000 - 
when lead poisoning was a severe problem - and that work at Kennedy Krieger 
and Bloomberg has been instrumental in reducing the incidence of lead 
poisoning in Baltimore over the past decade.

California Sen. Barbara Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee had 
planned hearings on the safety of government-funded studies in which 
scientists put fertilizers and compost materials into soils before the East 
Baltimore story appeared, but now will include a review of the Hopkins 
study.

A similar study was conducted in poor neighborhoods in East St. Louis, Ill., 
but officials there say there have been no health problems reported, 
according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The Southwestern Illinois Resource Conservation & Development Inc., the 
nonprofit organization that conducted the East St. Louis project, stood by 
its study methods last week and said there were no reports of health 
problems in the seven years since its completion.

"We used the best science available at the time," Dave Eustis, executive 
director of the organization, told the newspaper.

East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks told the newspaper he would go to the site 
to investigate and that he will ask the EPA to test the soil for any 
effects.

"This hit me completely out of the blue," Parks said.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-te.md.sludge23apr23,0,392170.story

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Urban Sludge Experiment Investigation
Reported by: Delia Goncalves
Last Update: 9:09 am
Click Here to Watch the Video The dilapidated neighborhoods in East 
Baltimore tell a sad tale of the community that once was; but the residents 
are long gone so no one can tell their story.  Then comes  the NAACP. “We 
are a voice for those who don’t have a voice,” said Wandra Ashley-Williams 
who works in community activism with the Maryland Conference of the NAACP.

Back in 2005, scientists working with the Department of Housing and Urban 
Development put sludge in the backyards of nine poor families telling them 
the sludge would protect against lead in the soil contaminated from nearby 
lead painted walls.  Even though the sludge grew grass in the backyards, no 
one ever told the families the mixture could also contain harmful toxins. 
Instead, scientists gave participants food coupons. Pastor John Heath of 
East Baltimore said, “To be duped and to risk your family’s life for 
coupons! But guess what?, if that family is in a place where those coupons 
mean the difference between being hungry and not being hungry then certainly 
those folks understand what they're doing.  They (Scientists) have taken 
East Baltimore and created their own mini-laboratory.  Certainly they would 
not do that in Homewood or Charles Village."

Now the NAACP is calling the agencies involved in the study including Johns 
Hopkins and Kennedy Krieger to come clean. Gerald Stansbury, President of 
the State Conference of NAACP said, “They could have done this test in the 
lab because they did nothing to examine the people to see what their blood 
level of lead was."   Ashley-Williams said the study harkens back to the 
infamous Tuskegee experiments where syphilis treatment was denied to black 
men in order to study the illness.  She said “It brings back a lot of hurt 
from the past that we thought we were finished with.”

A federal hearing will be held in the summer on the issue of urban sludge.  
In the meantime, the NAACP is demanding full disclosure of all community 
experiments happening now and in the past 10 years.

http://www.abc2news.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=4d80adc2-2296-4377-94bf-8bcd9cf633e6