Sludge Watch ==> The Ohio News Herald sums up the Augusta dead cows sludge case

[Maureen Reilly]

BRICKBATS:

To the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency, 
which a judge ruled last week are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of 
cows on a Georgia dairy farm.

They died because of a poorly overseen plan to convert raw sewage and 
industrial pollution into fertilizer, which the USDA then distributed to 
farmers.

Some of the same contaminants that killed that dairy farmer's cows also 
showed up in milk that the USDA allowed a neighboring farmer to market, even 
after officials were warned about it.
In one case, the level of thallium tested at 120 times the level the EPA 
allows in drinking water. Thallium has been used in rat poison, if that 
gives you some idea whether you want to put it in your body.

U.S. District Judge Anthony Alaimo called data endorsed by the two agencies' 
officials about toxic materials in the sludge "unreliable, incomplete, and 
in some cases, fudged." He added that "senior EPA officials took 
extraordinary steps to quash scientific dissent, and any questioning of 
EPA's biosolids program."

The 30-year-old sewage sludge program is still in effect. We can only hope 
it will be administered a lot more carefully than it has been.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19394839&BRD=1698&PAG=461&dept_id=220548&rfi=6