Province should ban use of bio-solids as fertilizer

To the Editor:

The President of the Federation of Agriculture stated recently that they hope to implement a program to "help farmers" by providing them with free bio-solid sewage sludge from HRM to use on their farm fields.

The problem is this practice of using "treated" human waste as fertilizer has never been proven to be safe beyond reasonable doubts. In fact, the practice has been banned in some provinces or a ban is pending in others because of severe health and environmental concerns.

How ironic it is that our government is set to spend $2.3 million to help promote the Buy Local initiative in Nova Scotia yet will sit back and allow bio-solid sewage matter to be spread over our most valuable resource - the land that feeds us - and risk compromising consumer confidence in the safety of locally-produced foods.

Is it wise to risk pitting consumer against farmer at the time when many Nova Scotians are beginning to realize the importance of supporting local food growers and to believe that foods produced in Nova Scotia may be considerably safer than foods from elsewhere?

What is most bothersome to me is, as a consumer, I am not being informed of who is utilizing bio-solids on their farm fields and who is not. In many instances, consumers are not able to make informed decisions about the food products they buy and feed their families with because pertinent information is missing from labels.

Our farmers need real solutions, not more problems. Providing free "toxic" fertilizer is not an answer for our farmers even if it helps defray costs. It is an answer to how HRM and other municipalities will dispose of its sewage material that has nowhere else to go.

In many North American areas where bio-solid usage has been ongoing, numerous environmental and medical experts have been proclaiming that many of the components in sewage sludge - such as feces, urine, blood, vomit, personal care products, synthetic hormones, pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, bacteria, viruses, prions, parasites, solvents, detergents, pesticides, heavy metals, and flame retardants - are accumulating in our soils and will persist there for years and years to come.

In this "toxic stew", testing is done primarily for E. Coli bacteria and the heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury). Most other chemicals can't be tested for due to limitations on labs, many of which have no methodology and no benchmarks to say what is safe and what isn’t.

"Treatment" of sewage doesn't kill all pathogens. Nova Scotians already suffer an above-average cancer rate. Will this practice worsen our health outlook?

I would like to see Nova Scotia ban the use of bio-solids on our agricultural land and laws be passed that make it mandatory for any farmer outside of the province using bio-solid fertilizer to state the fact on their consumer information labels.

Marilyn Cameron

Greenwich, Kings County