"Ordinary people," says Stauber, "tend to think of sewage treatment plants as magical places where water from industrial, residential, and medical toxins is treated so people can re-use it. It is true that sewage plants remove as many pathogens as they can: about 50 percents of it. They give the remaining mounds of sewage sludge that is too toxic to incinerate, landfill, or dump in the ocean to farmers free! Free to spread on America's fruited plains.
Sludge reaches right into the White House too. After the Obamas moved in, Michelle Obama had the White House garden soils tested; they revealed elevated levels of lead. Previous administrations had used sewage sludge there.
Once this substance containing thousands of hazardous synthetic chemicals from medications to sprays used upon fruit and vegetables is dumped in any garden it is not easy to remove.
Extrapolate what went on in San Francisco and at the White House and to thousands of unsuspecting farmers around the country. Recognize that only about one percent of our Earth is fertile enough to produce crops capable of feeding the world's population -- and then consider the far-reaching implications.
Moreover, Stauber says that the majority of progressive environmental groups operating back in the 1990s were so focused on preventing sludge from being dumped into the ocean and were so enthusiastic about cleaning up our water that "they took a dive on this issue and allowed the EPA to spread it on land. Most national environmental groups are still not involved in the fight to stop spreading "organic bio-solid compost" on farmland."
They are not the only ones fooled. Stauber says, "A lot of my friends in the environmental community have drunk the biosolid kool-aid and say, "Gee this is just nutrient recycling." But this is not just human manure or "Humanure" as we call it -- this is toxic sludge from industrial, medical, residential, and other waste."
Solutions to Pollutions?
John Stauber concludes that the entire sewage process as now constituted is archaic. "We cannot afford to contaminate our clean water with our waste and send it to plants that pull out the toxics then spread it on our farmlands. We already spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars moving this stuff around instead of, for example, separating humanure from the truly toxic stuff and safely composting what we can. We will spend hundreds of billions more dollars to figure this out... and we had better start sooner rather than later."
Despite the clichà ©, everything is connected. Humans are smart enough to look at the big picture and integrate generative solutions. We can no longer pretend these problems don't exist...or think we will solve them with more bigger, better, brighter technology... or export our waste to other countries. Ordinary Americans can -- must -- insist upon the opportunity to confront our mistakes directly, and our elected officials must deal honestly with residents who are ready, willing, and able to collaborate.
In San Francisco, a first step toward healing the credibility gap between local government and residents is for the mayor and the PUC to take back their not-so-free Giveaways.
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