Outrage in San Francisco: City Gives 'Organic' Compost to Residents Containing Toxic Sewage Sludge

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Jill Richardson

Outrage in San Francisco: City Gives Away 'Organic' Compost to Residents Containing Toxic Sewage Sludge
Worse, the land application of sewage sludge is actually a national issue, not merely an issue limited to San Francisco or even California.

March 4, 2010 |


When San Francisco, one of the greenest cities in America, offered its residents free compost, many were excited to take it. After all, purchasing enough compost for even a small 10 foot by 10 foot garden can cost over $50, and generating one's own compost in high enough quantities for such a garden takes a long time. Few of the gardeners who lined up to receive the free compost at events like last September's Big Blue Bucket Eco-Fair suspected that the free bags labeled "organic biosolids compost" actually contained sewage sludge from nine California counties. On Thursday, March 4, angry San Franciscans returned the toxic sludge to the city at Mayor Gavin Newsom's office in protest.

Sewage sludge is the end product of the treatment process for any human waste, industrial waste, and -- in San Francisco -- stormwater that goes down the drain. The end goal is treated water (called "effluent"), which San Francisco dumps into the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay. But the impurities and toxins removed from the water do not go away. With the water removed, the remaining by-product is a highly concentrated, toxic sludge containing anything that went down the drain but did not break down during the treatment process. That usually includes a number of heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals, steroids, and flame-retardants.

On its website, San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission describes a "green" process, in which its own sludge is treated until it qualifies as "Class B Biosolids" and then applied to farmlands in Solano and Sonoma Counties. A small percent undergoes further treatment to qualify as "Class A Biosolids," and that's the stuff that San Francisco's gardeners have been receiving as free "compost" since 2007. (The major difference between Class A and Class B is the amount of fecal coliforms present in the sludge.) Along with San Francisco's sludge, the "compost" contains sludge from eight other California counties (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Rosa, Solano, Sonoma) and equal parts yard waste and wood chips. But the fact that the sludge qualifies by law as safe to spread on farms and gardens does not make it so. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/food/145904/outrage_in_san_francisco%3A_city_gives_away_%27organic%27_compost_to_residents_containing_toxic_sewage_sludge

[bobburgster]

1. Of all the places...

San Francisco is the last place I would expect that to occur.

[paulsby]

6. you are kidding right?

i mean, cmon

[bobburgster]

7. Yeah.....my sarcasm doesn't always have clarity.

:sarcasm: better late than never :)

[thunder rising]

2. Sometimes the "outrage" is just too much to take. The whole world does it, get over it.

[M155Y_A1CH]

3. Sludge is widely accepted

as an agricultural fertilizer.
It should not be used for food crops though
or handled with bare skin.
It has been in use by farmers for decades.

[Crabby Appleton]

4. Toxic Sludge would be a good name for a band. nt

[marmar]

5. Probably already is.....

nt