Stop the use of Biosolids on Agricultural Land in Grundy County, TN

Biosolids (treated human sewage from Chattanooga, TN) were applied to agricultural land throughout Grundy County beginning August 8, 2015. Most only knew something was different because of the persistant and noxious smell that hung heavy in the air for more than 15 days. The use of human sewage sludge is an uncommon, but legal, option for land owners protected under the Right To Farm Act. However, the research validating its application is not conclusive nor have any long term studies shown it to be a completely safe practice for those living nearby or consuming products grown on the land. The problem with biosolids is that most municipal treatment facilities are not able to remove the many chemicals found in sewage. The four main categories of potential pollutants – nutrients, pathogens, toxic organics, and heavy metals – behave differently and cannot all be managed by any single kind of treatment. The goal of “safe management” of such a complex toxic mixture cannot be met at a reasonable cost.

The EPA itself conducted the national Sewage Sludge Survey (NSSS) in 1988 to get information on pollutants found in treated biosolids. They found dozens of hazardous substances, including heavy metals, organics, PBDE’s, pharmaceuticals, steroids and hormones in ALL the sludge samples the EPA took around the USA.

Rolf Halden is a professor at Arizona State University, member of the adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins and an expert on the environmental impacts of industrial chemicals. His lab recently used treated sewage sludge to identify and prioritize persistent bioaccumulative chemicals. The study found that chemicals contributed between 0.04% – 0.15% of the total dry mass of biosolids produced in the USA annually, which is equivalent to 2,866 – 8,708 tons of chemicals. The top individual chemicals found included:

Brominated fire retardants
DecaBDE
pentaBDE
1,2-bis(2,4,6 tribromophenoxy
ethane
Surfactants
Nonylphenol (NP) and their ethoxylates (NPEOs) – both used in textile processing
Antimicrobials
Triclosan and triclocarban
Antibiotics
Azithromycin
Ciprofloxacin
ofloxacin
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did a comprehensive exposure assessment of environmental chemicals found the U. S. population. They found about 139 organic chemicals in human blood, serum, urine and tissue samples. About 70% of the chemicals found in biosolids are also found in humans.

New studies have shown that:

Sewage sludge is mutagenic (it causes inheritable genetic changes in organisms), but no one seems sure what this means for human or animal health. Regulations for the use of sewage sludge ignore this information.
Two-thirds of sewage sludge contains asbestos. Because sludge is often applied to the land dry, asbestos may be a real health danger to farmers, neighbors and their children. Again, regulations don’t mention asbestos.
Governments issue numeric standards for metals. However, the movement of metals from soils into groundwater, surface water, plants and wildlife – and of the hundreds of other toxins in sludge – are poorly understood.
Soil acidity seems to be the key factor in promoting or retarding the movement of toxic metals into groundwater, wildlife and crops. The National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences gives sewage sludge treatment of soils a clean bill of health in the short term, “as long as…acidic soils are agronomically managed.” However the NRC acknowledges that toxic heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants can build up in treated soils.
There is good reason to believe that livestock grazing on plants treated with sewage sludge will ingest the pollutants – either through the grazed plants, or by eating sewage sludge along with the plants. Sheep eating cabbage grown on sludge developed lesions of the liver and thyroid gland. Pigs grown on corn treated with sludge had elevated levels of cadmium in their tissues. An AP story published in 2008 documented that milk sold throughout the U.S contained high levels of thallium (the primary toxin in rat poison), which had been present in the sewage sludge spread on crops fed to dairy cows.
Small mammals have been shown to accumulate heavy metals after sewage sludge was applied to forestlands.
Insects in the soil absorb toxins, which then accumulate in birds.
It has been shown that sewage sludge applied to soils can increase the dioxin intake of humans eating beef (or cow’s milk) produced from those soils.
Traces of prescription drugs and household chemicals were found deep in the soil as a result of a couple of decades of use of biosolids as fertilizer.
A study done in Sweden found that scientists have found antibiotic resistant “super bugs” in sewage sludge; they’re sounding the alarm about the danger of antibiotic resistant genes passing into the human food chain. Of the samples collected, 79% tested positive for the drug-resistnat vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) bacteria.

Please sign this petition to send a message to our friends and neighbors askinf them to not gamble with our health and future. This human sewage is provided to land owners free of charge under the guise of fertilizer. Every level headed person knows nothing is truly free. If it were as great as they claimed, they'd be selling it not pawning it off on the people of Grundy Co. We're better than this, please sign this petition asking Grundy County landowners to stop using human sewage as fertilizer. Read more about it here www.sludgefacts.org  or  www.biosolidsfacts.org