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Toxic Waste being sold as Fertilizers

Howdy Sq ftr's,

I realize not everyone on the list is organic, and I respect your
rights to choose.  I also care about what's being put in your
bodies without your knowledge. Being in the business of health and
nutrition, this information is not only startling from a health care
point of view, it's enraging from a personal point of view. If it
doesn't piss you off, you aren't paying attention.

 This article was front page Eugene "Register Gaurd" newspaper Monday
July 7 1997.

Title:         "Toxic waste in fertilizers a growing problem"

Subtitle:     Recycling: No law requires fertilizers to list
ingredients and some contain lead or radioactive wastes.

By The Associated Press

Seattle - Toxic heavy metals, chemicals and radioacive wases are
being recycled as fertilizers and spread over farmers fields
nationwide - and there is no federal law requiring that they be
listed as ingredients, Th Seattle Times reported.
The issue came to light in the central Washington town of Quincy,
population 4,000 when Mayor Patty Martin led an investigation by
local farmers concerned about poor yeilds and sickly cattle.
"It's really unbelievable what's happening, but it's true," Matin
told teh newspaper, which published a series about the practice on
THursday and Friday.
Until now, the state Department of Agriculture sampled fertilzers
only to see if they contained advertised levels of beneficial
substances.
But the state is cureently testing a crosssection of fertilizer
products to see if they threaten crops, livestock or people, the
Seatlle Post-Intelligencer reported Friday.
"The key question is what toxics are, as it were, along for the ride
in fertilizers." said Tom Fitzsimmons, director of teh state
Department of Ecology.
Use of industrial waste as a fertilizers ingredient is a growing
national phenomenon, The Times reported.
In Gore, Okla., a uranium-processing plant gets rid of low-level
radioactive waste by licensing it as liquid fertilizer and spraying
it over 9,000 acres of grazing land.
At Cama, Wash., lead-laced waste from a pulp mill is hauled to farms
and spread over crops destined for livestock feed.
In Moxee City, Wash., dark powder from two Oregon steel mills is
poured from rail cars into silow at Bay Zinc Co. un a federal
hazardous waste storage permit.Then it is emptied from the silos for
use as fertilizer. The newspaper called the podwer a toxic byproduct
of steel-making but did not identify it.
"When it goes into our silo, it's hazardous waste," said Bay Zinc's
president, Dick Camp. "When it comes out of the silo, it's no longer
regulated. The exact same material."
Federal and state governments encourage the recycling, which saves
money for industry and conserves space in hazardous-waste landfills.
The substances found in recycled fertilizers include cadmium, lead,
arsenic, radioactive materials and dioxins, the Times reprted. The
wastes come from incineration of medical and municipal wastes, and
from heavy industries including mining, smelting, cement kilns and
wood products.
Mixed and handled correctly, some industrial wastes can help crops
grow, but beneficial materials such as mitrogen and magnesium often
are accompanied by dangerous heavy metals such as cadmium and lead,
the Times said.
"Nowhere in the country has a law that says if certain levels of
heavy metals are exceeded, it can't be a fertilizer." said Ali
Kashani who directs fertilizer regulation in Washington stae.
Unlike many other industrialized nations, the United States does not
regulate fertilizers. That makes it virtually impossible to figure
out how much fertilizer contains recycled hazardous wastes. And laws
in most states, including Washington, are far from stringent.
Canada's llimit for heavy metals such as lead and cadmium in
fertilizer is 10-90 times lower than the US limit for metals in
sewage sludge, while the United States has no limit for metals in
fertilizer, the newspaper said.
"This is a definite problem," said Richard Loeppert, a soil scientist
at Texas A&M  University and author of several published papers on
toxic elements in fertilizers.
"The public needs to know"


---
Melissa Wise
mwise@simreal.com

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