E. Coli Outbreak Came After Warning (Producers Warned 04 & 05)

[RamboLiberal]

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=2460462

Federal health officials told California farmers to improve produce safety in a pointed warning letter last November, nearly a year before the multistate E. coli outbreak linked to spinach.

In fact, the current food-poisoning episode is the 20th since 1995 linked to spinach or lettuce, the Food and Drug Administration said.

Though state and federal officials have traced the current outbreak to a California company's fresh spinach, they haven't pinpointed the source of the bacteria that have killed one person and sickened at least 113 others. A second death was being investigated in the outbreak, which involves 21 states.

<snip>

In 2004 and again in 2005, the FDA's top food safety official warned California farmers they needed to do more to increase the safety of the fresh leafy greens they grow.

"In light of continuing outbreaks, it is clear that more needs to be done," the FDA's Robert Brackett wrote in a Nov. 4, 2005, letter.

[KittyWampus]

1. Coal Mines, Agri-Business, FEMA

ugh

[sam sarrha]

2. they put sewer sludge on fields.. in AK i drove by one that smelled like

rancid raw sewage.. it had the black splatter signature in it

[Psephos]

3. Wastewater treatment plant sludge is not the problem

The process of treating sewage is analogous to the conversion of food and lawn waste into clean humus in a compost pile. There are other things in WWTP sludge that render it unfit for use as fertilizer, though, and it cannot lawfully be used for that purpose. WWTPs won't sell sludge to a farmer who grows food for human consumption, and no farmer is going to buy it, unless either is looking for financial ruin due to the inevitable lawsuits that would follow.

What you saw in Arkansas was not WWTP sludge, but most likely, a semi-processed liquid fertilizer with an organic (perhaps animal manure) base.

Sure can stink, can't it?

Peace.

[RamboLiberal]

4. I wouldn't call sewage sludge harmless or say it's not getting

on or in to the food supply. I haven't read any stories recently but I have read of humans who have gotten sick and some who died after living near fields where it was spread. I remember it was covered on one of the major network news magazines (back when all the nets had newsmagazines that actually covered news).

Do a google on sewage sludge.

A coalition of labor, environment, and farm groups today formally petitioned Acting EPA Administrator Marianne Lamont Horinko to place an immediate moratorium on the land application of sewage sludge and ultimately to prohibit the practice. The action was taken after a Georgia court ruled that land application of sewage sludge in compliance with EPA's sludge rules caused the deaths of 300 prized dairy cows at the Boyce-family farm in Burke County, Georgia.

More than 23 million gallons of sewage sludge from the Messerly Wastewater Plant in Augusta, Georgia, were applied on Boyce farmland under the provisions of EPA's sludge program. After the Boyce cows were fed hay grown on the sludge-covered fields, hundreds of the cows died. When the family connected the deaths to sludge and stopped feeding their cows from these fields, the mortality rate for the Boyce herd returned to normal.

We have watched for years as the heavy metals and othertoxic materials present in sewage sludge, and accumulatingin the soil, have sickened and killed animals, and even people, said Laura Orlando, a spokesperson for the coalition. This Georgia court ruling is a fire bell in the night warning us to end this deadly practice before we irreparablycontaminate our nation's food sources and farmland.
An assessment of the EPA sewage sludge program conductedby its own Office of the Inspector General in 2002 concludedthat, "EPA cannot assure the public that current land application practices are protective of human health and the environment."

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/page192.cfm

[fed-up]

5. TOXIC SLUDGE is TOXIC (duh) article below on "Green Acres" in Los A

there is a clickable link in the original article to a PDF file (The Dirty Work of Promoting “Recycling” of America’s Sewage Sludge CAROLINE SNYDER, PHD )

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2006/09/green_acres_is.html
September 5, 2006
"Green Acres” is What Los Angeles Calls 254,000 Tons of Sewage Sludge Dumped and Spread in Kern County

By Frank Pecarich
The new topic for this discussion is that of sewage sludge and its safe disposal. Specifically we're talking about 33% of the sewage sludge generated within the State of California which mostly comes from Los Angeles and Orange County with assorted other municipal wastes thrown in. This sewage sludge for years now has been trucked from southern California over the Grapevine pass into Kern County and dumped on agricultural fields there. There are approximately 10,000 acres of farmland where the sewage sludge is dumped and spread, not the least of which is the City of Los Angeles' own 4,688 acre farm in Kern County where they spread just under 254,000 tons of sewage sludge in 2005. They -- The City of LA -- ironically has named this cess pool "farm" "Green Acres". Cities the sewage sludge comes from for LA City's "Green Acre" farm include Los Angeles, Burbank, Glendale, Santa Monica, El Segundo, Beverly Hills, Culver City, San Fernando, and West Hollywood. The city of Los Angeles trucks 99.9 percent of its treated sewage sludge to it's farm south of Bakersfield.

Tiring of this pollution from Southern California, Kern County voters in June passed an initiative -- Measure E -- banning the importation of sewage sludge into Kern County. The vote was 83% in favor of the ban. It stops the practice of spreading treated human and industrial sewage sludge on Kern county farmland.

The toxic nature of sewage sludge is well known and is fast becoming a topic of concern nationally and internationally. The subject is also rife with industrial and political intrigue as $ millions annually are involved. For a scientific treatment of the topic including an analysis of the political and industrial bias issues, I refer you to Dr, Caroline Synder's recent article in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health.


...snip


and if you are bored read "Toxic Sludge is Good For You"

[Psephos]

6. If you read what I posted...

...I said that post-treatment sludge is not suitable for use as fertilizer on crops intended for human consumption, with few exceptions. Its use for such is rare and highly-regulated.

About half of WWTP sludge in the U.S. ends up being applied to land. It's called recycling. Remember, this is after treatment, which because of the Clean Water Act of 1972 (amended 1977, 1985) is pretty stringent in the U.S. The sludge looks like peat moss, and must pass a series of tests for toxin content and bioactivity.

The spinach contamination did not come from WWTP sludge. It almost certainly came from contaminated irrigation water. There have been 19 incidents of E. coli contamination of produce in regional or national distribution since 1995. None of them were due to use of WWTP sludge or fecal contamination of crops in situ.

Your link is to a political site, which naturally will take a political view. I prefer, when deciding science issues, to avoid political sources, because by definition they downplay science that does not fit their political beliefs. We've gotten in a lot of trouble in this country by mixing politics and science, and neither the left nor the right have an admirable record about scientific objectivity. Just sayin'.

I did read the whole article, and noticed they described the Green Acres fields as "agricultural" in a way that made it sound like the sludge was being used on tomatoes or lettuce or something else destined for the produce section at Von's. Then they threw in the descriptor "cess pool," beat the "toxic" drum a few times, and generally did plenty to maximize the emotional impact of the anti-sludge viewpoint. A responsible editor would have inserted a line clarifying that the sludge is used as fertilizer for crops that are fed to cows, not people, and would have separated the editorializing from the, umm, reporting. That editor might also have given some information about the safety testing that is carried out on the soil and on the cows.

Here's an AP report that summarizes other considerations besides the single political viewpoint of the article you cited. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with any particular view here, but it is worth noting that the sludge that's being recycled at Green Acres used to be dumped into the ocean, with bad environmental results. Google for more stories; there are plenty.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/breaking_news/15352626.htm

What do you think we should do with post-processed sludge, fed-up?

Peace.

[LeftHander]

7. Example of why monolithic food production is not good.

This nation needs to make a effort distribute the food production. We need more local production, less development that destoys viable food production land. More incentives to produce and distribute food locally.

We make efforts to do so alreayd, farmers markets are becoming popular once again. Episode like this will further show people that local food is safer than mass produced, sprayed, bagged and shipped crap.

The corn belt produces corn that is used to make high fructose corn syrup for soda...and little else it seems.