How safe are biosolids?

This summer, due to water shortages and rising fertilizer costs around the globe, 49 million acres of cropland are being treated with human sewage. In Japan, when you visit a household, that’s why you take off your shoes at the door.

After the horrible meat debacle at the Maple Leaf plant in Ontario, can we trust either politicians or gigantic corporations to look after our health? Halifax Mayor Peter Kelly couldn’t wait to swim in the newly clean Northwest Arm, but 24 hours later human sewage made that an unsafe prospect.

I understand that sewage sludge from HRM is being dumped in old mine sites in Cape Breton. How safe is that?

Back in 2004, independent testing of biosolids at Inglewood Farm near Truro found high levels of flame retardants and other contaminants. The farm had spread sewage material from HRM mixed with cement kiln dust, which the Nova Scotia Environmental Network researchers determined included 21 heavy metals.

Network board member Fred Blois calls these HRM biosolids a chemical soup composed of everything flushed down toilets and drains, such as household cleaners, pharmaceuticals and waste from hospitals. He said the land application of biosolids poses a threat to our agricultural land and farm animals.

It has already happened in the U.S. Remember the banned tomatoes and banned lettuce from California? Recently, in Georgia, two farmers sued the city of Augusta because its sewage sludge fertilizer killed hundreds of their cows and contaminated their milk supplies. Farmers Andy McElmurray and Bill Boyce were awarded compensation.

In the March decision, data showed that the sludge contained levels of arsenic, toxic heavy metals, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) two to 2,500 times federal health standards.

Will become a larger issue

In a recent policy paper, the Dairy Farmers of Nova Scotia acknowledged, "biosolids will become a larger issue as more sewage treatment plants come on line.” Neither the Federation of Agriculture nor organic producers encourage the use of non-livestock generated waste as a soil amendment on agricultural land.

Eight years ago Coldbrook resident Belinda Manning had a gut feeling that trucking in 5,000 tons of sewage sludge a year, mixing it with sand and selling it as topsoil was not a healthy idea for Baltzer’s Bog. She started a letter-writing campaign that finally convinced provincial officials to take action.

Recently, NDP environment critic Graham Steele said changes to the Environmental Assessment Regulations announced by the provincial government are a backward step. "As a result of these changes, fewer projects will undergo an environmental assessment, and some major projects that would have undergone a full-scale assessment will now be speeded through the process," he said. "This backwards step more than outweighs the process improvements emphasized in the government news release and by the minister."

While the regulatory changes include some process improvements supported by the NDP, Steele believes they are largely a prime example of the Tory two-step on the environment: one step forward, one step back. "Instead, the regulatory changes are announced as a done deal and we're left to wonder which specific projects will be subject to the looser requirements. That's not the right way to protect the environment."

More change is called for: Manning

Reviewing the changes, Manning says that after many years, and many processes, including the Provincial Ombudsman Office, she is pleased to see the department finally has included the term ‘peat’. “It has brought the terminology into line with the science.” However, more change is called for, in her opinion. While the timelines are better, she notes, the assessment process is hampered because non-profit groups don’t have the funds to conduct analysis or can’t access expertise. “It sure took them a long time to make the changes and with such time lapses,” she said, “it means that new information has become available now so the changes may not be complete in today's world” of listeriosis, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) and Walkerton water. Who can forget that BSE was transmitted to healthy cows that came in contact with the tainted tissue of others with the disease in their feed?

Back in February, the Canadian Press reported that Nova Scotia Auditor General Jacques Lapointe found the province's environmental monitoring and compliance division needed to tighten up its approval processes and improve follow-up on public complaints.

Hopefully it has since the auditor general concluded that inspection processes are not adequate to ensure compliance with the Environment Act. Lapointe also said the province has to do a better job of following up on his recommendations. He pointed out that his office made 272 recommendations in 2004 and 2005 and only 39 per cent were implemented while 55 per cent were described as a work in progress.

It sure is a scary dance, this one step forward and one step back.