[USCC] Pelletizing equipment for compost - toxic pollutants in sewage sludge "biosolids"

[Helane Shields]

While some industrial pretreatment programs have reduced  inputs of inorganic toxic metals, huge quantities of other toxic industrial pollutants, including PFOAs (perfluoroonctanoic acid )are still being discharged untested, unmonitored, unregulated, into sewage treatment plants around the country,  

The wastewater treatment process reconcentrates these organic (carbon based) bioaccumulative, persistent carcinogens in the sewage sludge and treated effluent discharged to surface waters.    This toxic industrial chemical is showing up not only in soil, sludge, surface and groundwater, but even in fish and in meat and milk of  animals grazing on sludged fields.

The results of US EPA and USDA tests for PFOA taken in Alabama March 2009 still have not been released to the public although some residents have been informed their wells are polluted with PFOA.    States reporting PFOA contamination include Georgia, Alabama, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and Ohio.    Farmers need to think twice before spreading toxic sewage sludge on their land as "fertilizer".

Helane Shields, Alton, NH, Sludge researcher since 1996   http://www.sludgevictims.com