Sludge Watch ==> NovaScotia Annapolis Valley - We are drinking fertilizer

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Nova Scotia is poised to expand  sewage sludge spreading to include Halifax 
sewage sludge.
However Federal report shows that in the
Annapolis Valley 57% of wells show elevated nitrates.
The report indicated that if farmers along a watershed stopped using 
fertilizers today, it could take 20 years for nitrates to come down to a 
normal level.

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

We're drinking fertilizer
by Wendy Elliott/The Advertiser
Wendy Elliott/The Advertiser May 11st 2008

We're drinking fertilizer


Not that long ago, a retired fisherman in Alberton, PEI, pointed to the 
island's famed potato fields from his boat and told me that agricultural 
chemicals were leaching into on-shore waters and killing fish.

Last summer, six farmers were ordered to make changes to their fields after 
thousands of dead fish washed up near two of the island's most pristine 
rivers.

The CBC reported last year that the high nitrate levels in PEI's drinking 
water will get worse if farming practices don't change. Researcher Martine 
Savard said the study showed the nitrates are coming from chemical 
fertilizers spread on fields.

Twenty federal and provincial researchers were involved in the study, taking 
water samples from wells around the island over several years. It indicated 
that if farmers along a watershed stopped using fertilizers today, it could 
take 20 years for nitrates to come down to a normal level.

This past January, the PEI government showed it was starting to take the 
problem seriously. It set up a series of seven, free drinking water testing 
clinics to look at nitrate content. The Commission on Nitrates in 
Groundwater will report to the premier by June.

It's a good 20 years since this newspaper first ran stories about high 
nitrate content in drinking water in the Annapolis Valley.

Not much better

Nobody blinked then, and the problem isn't appreciably better today. 
However, water testing is no longer free. Nitrates cannot be tested in this 
region, anyway. The service will probably cost $150, according to the 
government website.

Three years ago, the Geological Survey of Canada looked at 966 wells in the 
Annapolis Valley. It determined that 56.8 per cent of the sampled wells 
exceeded the threshold level for human impacts -- one out of 10 contained 
nitrate traces above acceptable levels prescribed in municipal drinking 
water standards.

Stephen Hawbolt of the Clean Annapolis Valley Project says the highest 
concentrations are around Kentville -- Billtown, Port Williams, Canard, 
Canning and Berwick. Elevated counts were detected in wells from 
Lawrencetown to Wolfville.

The hotspots are mostly, as Environment Minister Mark Parent told me, in his 
riding, where farming predominates. The Nova Scotia survey authors also 
blamed agriculture as the most prominent source. Parent’s department has 
been monitoring groundwater in the region since 2002. Water in 22 per cent 
of the wells tested last year exceeded the federal guideline for nitrate 
levels.

The levels have not significantly changed since monitoring began and won't 
for years, according to Parent, but he says he is cheered that they have 
stabilized.

Affects health

Nitrates are known to interfere with the body's ability to absorb iron, and 
are particularly a problem for infants, who can develop blue baby syndrome, 
where the blood's ability to carry oxygen is reduced. Anemia is another 
flag.

Dr. John Rolf, who is a Canada Research Chair on Environment and 
Conservation at Acadia University, says the wider health implications of 
excess nitrates are not put together at all.

There is a myth that Parent himself voices that filtration systems, like 
Brita, can easily take nitrates out of household water supplies, but science 
has yet to prove that point.

Rolf says he would like to do a small study on whether activated charcoal 
filters can remove nitrates because one hasn’t been done.

I could do it in about three days. It would not be expensive, he says. 
According to Rolf, the only municipal system that can filter out nitrates is 
in Guelph, Ontario.

Twenty years ago I stopped thinking that Kings County well water was better 
than chlorinated town water. I worry about the implications of moms in 
Billtown, Port Williams, Canard, Canning and Berwick mixing formula with 
groundwater. There is not much that is not known about nitrates contaminates 
and why is nobody even talking about it?

http://www.novanewsnow.com/article-211672-Were-drinking-fertilizer.html#comment