Sludge Watch ==> Baltimore Orgro sludge - Democracy Now Sludge Interview

[Maureen Reilly]

You can view the interview between Caroline Snyder and Dr. Michael Klag, 
Dean of
the Bloomsberg School of Public Health  of the Johns Hopkins School of 
Public Health  by going to www.democracynow.org

Or Read the Transcript at:

http://thewatchers.us/Baltimore-Klag-Snyder.html

May 23, 2008
Baltimore Sludge Compost Issues

See the video
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/23/johns_hopkins_university_responds_to_allegations

Johns Hopkins University Responds to Allegations Toxic Sludge Tested as Lead 
Poisoning Fix in Poor Black
Neighborhoods

Lawmakers and the NAACP last month called for an investigation into reports 
that federally funded scientific
experiments in 2000 spread sewage sludge on the yards in poor black 
neighborhoods to test if it could fight lead
poisoning in children. The calls came after the Associated Press ran a story 
on the issue. We host a debate between
Dr. Michael Klag, Dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public 
Health, and Dr. Caroline Snyder, Professor
Emeritus at the Rochester Institute of Technology. [includes rush 
transcript]


Guests:

Dr. Michael Klag, Dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public 
Health.

Dr. Caroline Snyder, Professor Emeritus at the Rochester Institute of 
Technology.
She recently published a peer-reviewed paper dealing with the politics and 
science of sludge disposal.

Rush Transcript

JUAN GONZALEZ: Lawmakers and the NAACP last month called for an 
investigation into reports that federally funded
scientific experiments in 2000 spread sewage sludge on the yards in poor 
black neighborhoods to test if it could fight
lead poisoning in children. The calls came after the Associated Press ran a 
story on the issue. The researchers say the
experiment successfully reduced the amount of lead in the soil, but some 
scientists question the findings, as well as the
choice of neighborhood and lack of transparency with the residents.

AMY GOODMAN: When the article came out, we spoke with John Heilprin, the AP 
reporter who broke the story. I asked
him who the families were that accepted the sludge be spread in their yards.

JOHN HEILPRIN: Well, one of the problems is we don’t know exactly who they 
are. No one will identify them. They were
all families from these poor, low-income neighborhoods, black neighborhoods 
in Baltimore in so-called empowerment
zones. And all of them agreed to take on—to have this Class A fertilizer 
tilled into their lawns. These were basically
bald dirt lawns with high levels of lead contamination. And the Class A 
sludge fertilizer was tilled into the lawn to create
grass cover, and on the theory that if the children ate the dirt, they would 
be better protected from the lead
contamination, because the sludge would mix with the lead in the soil and 
make that pass safely through the body. That
was the researchers’ theory.

AMY GOODMAN: But John, these families were given a financial incentive to 
accept this sludge on their lawn.

JOHN HEILPRIN: They were. They were given food coupons, free lawns, free 
doormats. We didn’t put that in the story.
And they were essentially told that this was commercial-grade fertilizer, 
that it was safe, as you reported, and that they
would be better off, that they would be better off using this fertilizer 
than before.

The thing that I found interesting was that this government-sponsored 
research essentially operates on the premise
that this fertilizer is safe enough and good enough to eat, even though the 
researchers say that the fertilizer was not
fed directly to the children. The premise of the research is that if they 
eat it, they will be better off.

AMY GOODMAN: John Heilprin, you quote a scientist, Dr. McBride, saying that 
it’s actually not safe for the kids. There’
s a real question here. The soil chemist from the Cornell Waste Management 
Institute said, when eaten, “it’s not at all
clear that the sludge binding the lead will be preserved in the acidity of 
the stomach. Actually thinking about a child
ingesting this, there’s a very good chance that it’s not safe.”

JOHN HEILPRIN: Well, that’s right. There’s—first of all, the EPA’s inspector 
general has twice said that there’s no way
that the EPA can assure the public that sludge is safe. This theory that the 
phosphate and iron can bind to the lead
might work in the soil; however, as Murray McBride said, the stomach acids 
will probably break down—will break out the
lead from the soil. In fact, in 2003, another scientist, an EPA 
microbiologist, David Lewis, had also come to the same
conclusion. He was working within the EPA’s Office of Research and 
Development, and he used to call this theory
“sludge magic.”

AMY GOODMAN: John Heilprin, speaking on Democracy Now! last month. His 
report implicated researchers and
funders at Johns Hopkins University, the Kennedy Krieger Institute, the 
Environmental Protection Agency and
others.

After we ran the segment, Johns Hopkins contacted us, demanded we retract 
the story. We’ve invited them on the
program today to tell their side of the story. Dr. Michael Klag is the dean 
of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health. He joins us in Baltimore. And we’re joined on the telephone 
by Dr. Caroline Snyder, professor emeritus at
the Rochester Institute of Technology. She recently published a 
peer-reviewed paper dealing with the politics and
science of sludge disposal. We welcome you both to Democracy Now!

Let’s begin with Dr. Michael Klag. Can you talk about the allegations of 
John Heilprin, the AP reporter?

DR. MICHAEL KLAG: Certainly, Amy. And we really appreciate that you are 
having us on the show. This article was
filled with inaccuracies and misrepresentations, which creates the wrong 
impression that children were targeted for
some experimental toxic treatment. Nothing could be further from the truth. 
In fact, if you read that article and look at it,
they have a picture of Type B biosolids, which looks like human waste matter 
being held in a farmer’s hand while it’s
spread on the field. That’s just one of the things that creates the wrong 
impression, that this is what was done in this
study.

Here’s what was done. What was done is, people went to a composting facility 
and got compost that you or I could buy
in a store that’s approved by the federal government for unlimited use and 
is approved by the Maryland Department of
the Environment for unlimited use, and they have much more stringent 
guidelines than the federal government. That
was put on lawns to grow grass. The interview you just ran creates the 
impression that we were feeding fertilizer and
human waste to children. The idea was that if you reduce the dust in the 
yards, because the yards, as you said, had no
grass, then that dust would not be tracked into the house, where it becomes 
part of the house dust and toddlers and
small infants can ingest it by crawling around. So there are many 
inaccuracies in this story. That’s one.

But let me—I’m not sure how long you want me to go on—but he quotes David 
Lewis on this subject. And let me just
read some quotes from David Lewis. “Almost no bacteria survive in Class A 
sludge, which is heated more and treated
with additional chemicals.” In other articles, Mr. Lewis says, “There’s a 
simple cure for the sludge problem: don’t use
Type B; use Type A.” This article confuses Type A and Type B biosolids. Type 
A is where sewage sludge is taken, it’s
heated, pasteurized, just like milk is pasteurized, to kill pathogens, mixed 
with wood chips and wood dust, and left to
compost for several months. It’s a commercially available product that’s 
used widely. The notion that it was somehow
used only and targeted at poor families is just wrong. It’s used on the 
White House lawn. It’s used on the congressional
golf course. It’s used at Camden Yards, our local golf course—or our local 
Orioles park. It’s used very widely.

AMY GOODMAN: Is this why President Bush has said he’s not going to play golf 
anymore?

DR. MICHAEL KLAG: Yeah, I don’t want to get into the politics of the effects 
of sludge. So there is a big debate, which I
know we’re going to hear about, about the use of sludge. But to suggest that 
this was anything other than a study that
used store-available, store-bought compost to grow lawns is just egregious.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the issues that he raised about the transparency and the 
explanation to the people who were
receiving this material on their lawns or in yards?

DR. MICHAEL KLAG: Right. So, the transparency—we are prevented by federal 
law from revealing the names of these
people. When we got permission to use their yards, we signed a document with 
them that we promised not to reveal
who they are. In every radio show I’ve been on and in interviews with the 
press, I’ve indicated people are free to identify
themselves, to say that they participated in this study to grow grass. But I 
can’t reveal their names. And so far, nobody
has done that. But it’s their choice, not mine, to reveal. And the reporter 
was told this, and to portray that as somehow a
lack of transparency or underhandedness is just wrong.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s bring Dr. Caroline Snyder into this discussion, professor 
emeritus at the Rochester Institute of
Technology. Your response?

DR. CAROLINE SNYDER: Well, Dr. Klag has made an awful lot of misleading 
statements already in the first ten minutes
of this show. I think it’s very important to point out that just because 
something is commercially available and just
because it’s called “compost,” and just because it’s spread on the White 
House lawn, which is a media event for a PR
gimmick, does not mean that this material is safe. Class A sludge should not 
have been put on contaminated—soil that
was already highly contaminated with lead. It’s simply exposed families to 
additional, additional risks.

This so-called compost, which really is a polluted material—I think a lot of 
people don’t realize what sludge is. It is all the
toxic and harmful stuff that’s taken out of wastewater, so the wastewater 
can be returned to the environment. It’s all that
material that’s concentrated in sludge. The federal Clean Water Act defines 
sludge as a pollutant. And you shouldn’t
put pollutants on soil, and you certainly shouldn’t be putting it on in 
residential areas that are already polluted by lead.
And so, these risks—we believe that this whole experiment actually put the 
families and the children at additional risk.
Why on earth did they not use clean compost, unpolluted compost, as a 
vehicle to deliver, you know, iron and
phosphate, which, to some extent, might help with the lead abatement, 
although even there are some scientific
questions? So there are some legal, there’s some scientific, there’s some 
ethical questions about this whole, whole
experiment.

I just want to also say that the AP coverage was fair. It was totally 
accurate. And in fact, AP hasn’t even begun—hasn’t
even begun to report on the serious health and environmental problems that 
have been linked to the land application of
sewage sludge. There is no scientific evidence that this practice is safe. 
There’s a lot of deception. There’s a lot of
cover-up of incidents.

David Lewis is one of the victims. He was courageous enough to get into 
this. Very few scientists go into this, because
they realize that being a whistleblower in this particular issue is a very 
risky practice. And he lost his job by actually
doing research and publishing the link between human health and the use of 
sludge.

So the statement by Dr. Klag that this is safe and that it was germ-free is 
a totally false statement. The way sludge is
treated to reduce pathogens does not kill all the germs. So, the families 
were misinformed about that, and they were
misinformed by being told it was risk-free. We have incidences where 
actually people, landscapers who have used this
material and touched it, have gotten skin infections and respiratory 
problems.

We have incidences that the most famous of all sludge compost, namely 
Milorganite, which is more famous than Orgro,
had salmonella grown—re-grown in it, and when it was shipped to Canada, 
Canadians—it did not pass the Canadian
fertilizers rules, and it had to be shipped back to the United States. We 
have another incident with Milorganite, or with
the plant that produces the sludge that goes into Milorganite in Milwaukee, 
Wisconsin. The Class A sludge was spread
on twenty-four playing fields of children, where children play, and after it 
was spread, they discovered it had such high
levels of cancer-causing PCBs that it had turned these playgrounds into 
Superfund sites. So they had to actually
scrape all that stuff up again, truck it away to another state, where it was 
put into hazardous waste landfills.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I’d like to bring back Dr. Michael Klag into the discussion. 
A couple of points that Dr. Caroline
Snyder raised, Dr. Klag, one about the issue of the difference between this 
sludge and what she calls “clean compost”
and why you didn’t use that; and also the issue of whether the processes to 
clean Class A sludge really get rid of all of
the contaminants that exist in it.

DR. MICHAEL KLAG: Well, I’m not an environmental expert. My point is that 
this study was done eight years ago using
the best information available at that time, using a product that’s approved 
by the federal and state governments for
unrestricted use and that is widely used.

DR. CAROLINE SNYDER: Yeah, I’d like to—

DR. MICHAEL KLAG: It wasn’t the product that was shown in the picture in 
that article, which is Type B sludge and
which there has been much concern about. So what I want to talk about is 
that this article had misrepresentations about
the study and the way it was done and created innuendos about transparency 
and other things that just aren’t true.

DR. CAROLINE SNYDER: Well, could I make a statement about that? I don’t 
think it’s a very good idea to base opinions
on pictures, but I am going to do that, too. I’ve looked very carefully at 
the Farfel article. First of all, the soil that was
churned up by rototillers was not bare, blowing around; it was compacted and 
it was held together by plants. So now the
researchers come with high-power rototillers and start tilling this 
lead-contaminated—and it was highly contaminated,
2,500 parts per million of lead—they start tilling this up right by the 
basement windows in the middle of summer, tilling it
up, loosening up all the soil that had been compacted. Then they add the 
sludge compost. Then they till it up for a
second time.

And I think this whole process has actually exposed the children of the 
families to additional—to higher risks than if they
had perhaps left it alone. There was no need to do this experiment in the 
front yards of residential neighborhoods. It
could have been done on an empty lot somewhere in the city. To do this—and 
they didn’t fence it in. Did they tell the
families to keep their windows closed in the middle of summer, where there’s 
no air conditioning? Did they tell them
there was no fence? So pets could play in it, children could play in it. 
They could track this stuff down. They’re not now
only exposed to ingestion by accidentally eating the soil; they are now 
being exposed through inhalation and dermal
contact, as well. So we feel not only that the sludge itself 
presented—sludge compost presented an additional risk, but
the actual process, the actual process of putting this material into leaded 
soil, was additional—an additional exposure to
lead.

If the Krieger Institute is really interested, if society is really 
interested in protecting children from lead poisoning, they
should move families out of those houses, clean up the houses, cover up the 
soil, and not have children in this rich
country be exposed to high levels of lead and then, in addition, to the 
risks that are associated with sludge.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Michael Klag, your response?

DR. MICHAEL KLAG: Certainly. Well, I don’t know if the doctor has ever been 
to Baltimore, but in 2000, we were
suffering one of the worst epidemics in the world of lead poisoning in 
children. Kennedy Krieger Institute was seeing
over a thousand cases a year of lead poisoning. As you know, lead poisoning 
causes growth retardation, decreased
cognitive status, decreased IQ, behavioral problems, and is a predictor of 
getting in trouble with the law many years
later. And it’s irreversible once it occurs.

So the people at Kennedy Krieger were treating all these children from the 
same neighborhoods year after year,
neighborhoods with very high levels of lead in the homes, most of which was 
from paint, but some which is from soil
exposure. They were trying to find ways to prevent lead poisoning before it 
occurred. This was one of the studies in
which they did that.

It would be ideal to knock all those homes down, to abate entirely the 
neighborhood, but 95 percent of the housing
stock was built before 1978, when lead was removed from paint. The kinds of 
solutions that are being suggested aren’t
practical. So the investigators were looking for a way to do this. It had 
been shown around in industrial settings, around
lead smelters, that putting compost in the soil reduced bio-available lead. 
It had been shown in the laboratory in
Baltimore that if you took the soil from yards to the laboratory, treated 
it, grew grass, you reduce bio-available lead. So,
we knew this had been done.

There had been thought of doing it in a vacant lot, as the doctor suggests. 
But the problem with that approach is that
the grass needed to be maintained. The idea here is that if you have grass 
growing, you don’t track the dust and dirt
into the house. So it needed to be maintained. And also, because of the 
neighborhoods in which this was done, it was
not safe for the workers to go into the vacant lots.

So, the other thing I should mention is, this compost was picked in part 
because the community had been using it in
community gardens as part of a greening project. So this was something that 
had been used by the community for
many years. That’s one of the reasons the product was picked.

DR. CAROLINE SNYDER: Well, just because it’s used does not mean it’s safe. 
Let me very quickly tell you what legally
is allowed to be in sludge compost: forty-one parts per million of arsenic, 
thirty-nine parts per million of cadmium, 300
parts per million of lead. Now, what on earth—what sense does it make to put 
a polluted compost in these already
polluted yards that already contains lead? Why use this particular 
controversial material? It’s very controversial to use,
and there’s very little difference really between Class A sludge and Class B 
sludge. Class A sludge contains virtually the
same amounts, legally, of toxic metals, toxic organics—tens of thousands. We 
only regulate a handful of these. There
was absolutely no excuse for using sludge as the vehicle to deliver 
phosphate and iron.

AMY GOODMAN: We only have a minute to go. Final comments, first from Dr. 
Michael Klag.

DR. MICHAEL KLAG: Well, I would say that the Maryland requirements are much 
stricter than the federal requirements
just quoted. This was a study in nine yards of buying a—using a store-bought 
compost to grow grass, and it was one in
an incredibly high-risk neighborhood that helped these families by providing 
lawns. The article, the AP article, is
inaccurate in many ways about this study.

DR. CAROLINE SNYDER: I think your comments are inaccurate, very inaccurate, 
by claiming—by telling the families
that there were no germs in it, that it was safe, that it would make their 
yards safe. What is going to prevent them from
growing vegetables there? And think of the risks then.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there, and I thank you both for 
being with us, but we’ll continue to
follow the story. Dr. Caroline Snyder, professor emeritus at the Rochester 
Institute of Technology, and Dr. Michael Klag,
dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

DR. CAROLINE SNYDER: Thank you very much.

AMY GOODMAN: Thank you both for being with us.

DR. MICHAEL KLAG: Thank you.