Sludge Watch ==> Warkwarth ONTARIO - sludge victims still waiting for an official investigation

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Here is an example of the misinformation that is circulating in rural 
Ontario towns and villages.
This reporter misrepresents the reality of rural sewage sludge biosolids use 
and the accompanying health risks.

The reporter's trite suggestion that sludge victims are refuted by science 
is flatly inaccurate.  What we have is an outbreak of illness that public 
officials have failed to investigate despite their legal responsibility to 
do so. In Ontario residents may call upon the Medical Officer of Health to 
determine if sludge constitutes a risk to public health.  These residents 
have asked for a determination but the Medical Officer of Health has failed 
to make a determination, despite her legal obligation to investigate and 
make a determination.


The reporter cites the National Academy of Sciences.  In fact, the NAS 
report recognized the lack of studies and “concludes that because of the 
lack of epidemiological study and the need to address the public’s concerns 
about potential adverse health effects, EPA should conduct studies that 
examine exposure and potential health risks to works and community 
populations.”  The committee recognized that the absence of evidence was not 
evidence of the absence of an effect." (Cornell)
He diminishes the seriousness of the complaints in Warkwarth and Nova Scotia 
which together have over 40 complainants - not two complaints.

And these don't include the complaints about sludge from across Ontario - 
regarding N-Viro, the complaints from the Ottawa area, Shelburne, Oakville, 
Dundalk, Cannington, Prince Edward County,  and many other public 
complaints.

The reporter and the University lecturer suggest that farm families that 
spread sewage sludge (and in some cases are paid to spread sludge) should be 
the focus of health studies.   Given that the same farm families would be 
subject to strict legal liability for making their neighbors sick should 
health issues emerge, this group seems the least likely to cooperate in a 
study of health impacts from sludge.

Patrick, the reporter, has also failed to do his research.  The Medical 
Officer of Health for this region has determined that sludge is what made an 
infant repeatedly sick in Warkwarth a few years ago.
(see Enid Lipsett complaint to Dr Hukowich).

As to the economics, it is no longer cheaper to put sludge on farmlands, now 
that it can be used as a renewable energy form of biomass fuel.  Reporters 
and University educated sludge commentators need to research the facts, and 
not just recycle inaccurate and insensitive sludge industry spin.

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

http://www.farmersforum.com/FEB2008/FEB2008_p10.htm

Warkworth anti-biosolids activists not on side of science: researcher

By Patrick Meagher

Biosolids, a euphemism for human waste, continues to cause outrage in 
Warkworth. A small group of citizens at this village southeast of 
Peterborough are complaining of illness and they link that to farmland. 
Wendy Deavitt, who moved to her retirement home in the country six years 
ago, has complained of diarrhrea, respiratory distress, watering eyes, micro 
plasma pneumonia and headaches. She told Northumberland Today that she 
tested for high levels of heavy metals and the odour during biosolid 
application "was enough to make you vomit."

So far, however, the science doesn’t side with Deavitt.

"There’s always concern (about biosolids)," said University of Guelph 
researcher Chris Kinsely, of the east of Ottawa francophone agricultural 
college, Alfred campus. "There’s anecdotal cases where people are sick."

It’s easy for those who get sick to look around, see biosolids applied to a 
nearby field, and make an erroneous link, he said. "If there was massive 
risk we’d see it in farm families. We don’t. So, there is a risk but how 
small?"

The U.S. based independent research group National Academy of Sciences 
reported in Biosolids Applied to Land in 2002 that of all studies done, 
there was no link to human health, Kinsley said. He also noted that Cornell 
University reports only two cases in Canada where the news media has 
reported a biosolids link with human health. One case is in Nova Scotia. The 
other is at Warkworth, where Deavitt and others are crying foul. In both 
cases no link has been confirmed by science, Kinsley said.

The National Academy of Sciences study also concluded that more studies need 
to be done. Said Kinsley: "There should be nationwide studies of high risk 
groups such as farm families where biosolids have been applied."

As it stands, biosolids now are treated before applied to land. In small 
municipalities, oxygen is blown through biosolids to encourage bacteria to 
degrade pathogen indicators, particularly e.coli. In larger municipalities, 
an aerobic process turns human waste into methane to convert to electricity.

The city of Ottawa partially lifted its ban on the use of biosolids but 
arguably not because city officals think it’s safe. Spreading biosolids on 
fields is a lot less costly than sending biosolids to landfills or drying 
and incinerating it, Kinsley said.

The Ontario Ministry of Environment has approved the application of 
biosolids for more than 30 years and has no documented health or 
environmental impacts.