1. Dairy Farm, RD2 Box 25, Canaan, NH 03741 Tel 603-523-7771
Cattle died, soil unfertile, farmer Bob Withington got sick, other victims not yet identified in the community -- this is a tragic yet classic case which we will see a lot more of in the future. Case compiled by Helane Shields.
Wednesday, January 7, 1998
A couple of weeks ago, Bob Whithington called me. He told me he bought several truckloads of corn silage from Putnam Farms last winter. The silage was delivered by Beaudry Trucking. After he fed the silage to his cows, they started getting sick and some died. Bob said they found a grey substance, including one large gob the size of a footballmixed in with some of the silage. We believe it may have been paper mill waste. Beaudry hauls for BFI which landspreads both sewage sludge and paper mill wastes. Bob's vetrinarian Charlie Hutchinson, still has a gob of this stuff in his freezer. However I believe this gray substance may be a peripherial issue which diverted attention from another possible source of the sickness and death.)
Autopsies were done and tests undertaken at UNH [University of New Hamshire] and Cornell for Salmonella, E Coli and every known cow disease. [Bob's well water was also tested and was found to be OK-- not a source of sickness or contamination.] Absolutely no known disease was detected.
Bob contacted state officials, including Mike
Rainey, NH Dept. of Environmental Services, State Vetrinarian Cliff
Mcguiness, Milk Inspector, Leah Keller, and Office of Health
Management, Health & Human Services.
Rainey told told Bob there was nothing in paper mill sludge
that could harm his cows. This cursory comment was apparently the
total extent of Mike Rainey's "investigation" of the problem.
McGuiness, the State vet. wasn't any more help and displayed
very little interest. Bob had words with McGuiness and told him if it
were his draft horses that were getting sick and dying, he would be
be a lot more concerned.
Keller the milk inspector, promised to investigate and get
back to Bob. He never heard from her again.
Later in the spring, Bob got sick. Around April, 1997, he started losing the feeling in his hands and arms. His legs and feet were cold and numb. went to many doctors ... they think it could be some kind of neurological disease (or a brain tumour... or rare form of cancer ... or MS ... in other words, they are clueless !). Doctor have no answers ... theythink it may be related to whatever harmed the cows.
State Health agency took blood samples from Bob and surviving cows. Took finger nail clippings from Bob and hoof scrapings from surviving cows. State Health agency said there was no evidence of heavy metals.
The reaction of New Hamshire officials is typical of what has happened across the country. Mention the word "sludge" and "problem" in the same sentence, and everyone clams up. Because official official state policy is to promote landspreading of sewage sludge -- people with problems are "blown off". The state (and EPA) cannot and will not admit sludge can cause any harm, and they refuse to investigate for fear that the truth will come out and embarras them...
After talking to Bob Withington I pored through my files, and this is what I came up with:
That sludge had been sitting on the Putnam Farm since late winter, 1995. I believe BFI spread that sludge on the Putnam corn fields in the summer of 1996, the BFI 8/96 letter notwithstanding.
The point is, items 1 through 5 above came from Mike Rainey's DES files files ! When Bob Withington called in early 1997 and told Rain his cows were getting sick and dying after being fed silage which Bob suspected had been contaminated with sludge and asked for Rainey's help --- RAINEY HAD ALL THIS INFORMATION (ITEMS 1 THROUGH5) AT HIS FINGERTIPS. This information should have alerted Rainey to a possible xause of the problem. Rainey should have known what tests should be done immediately (on the corn silage, on the soil at the Putnam farm, on the animals, etc.) RAINEY DID NOTHING ... except tell Bob the sickness and death couldn't possibly be caused by sewage sludge or paper mill sludge.
Acouple of other points of interest:
Bob Withington of Canaan, NH echoes what sludge victims across the country have said. When they turned to those public officials promoting the landspreading of sewage sludge and asked for help ... no-one would investigate, no-one would listen -- no-one cared (or dared).
It is outrageous for Mike Rainey of NH DES to accompany the sludge companies around the state, urging farmers and landowners to put this contaminated waste their property as "fertilizer" ... but then disappear when a problem arises !
The end of a beautiful dairy farm and a very sad story.
2. "The GRYAB Case - Sweden. (sweden was the first country to connect a major portion of its population to advanced sewage treatment -- the better we clean the water, the worse is the sludge...)
In the 1970s Lars Wideström, a landscape gardener/grower, became a victim of the swedish authorities' lax attitude towards sludge toxicity. In 1978 he planted 20,000 shrubs and trees in what was labeled topsoil by a vendor. This "topsoil" turned out to be sludge from the Gothenburg sewage treatment plant "Ryaverket" (GRYAB) which had been composted with bark. After the application the growth came to a halt. After a few months the plants had both above ground level damage as well as damage to the root system. The plants could not be sold. Wideström went bankrupt and lost his business, home and livelihood. He then turned to Miljöcentrum (the Environmental Center) for help. We carried out our own experiments with the same "topsoil" which had damaged his plants.... Our analysis showed that the samples had concentrations of heavy metals well below the maximum levels allowed by the applicable regulations. Moreover, parasites were eliminated as the cause for these effects.
"The owners of the sewage treatment plant were taken to court by a coalition of the Miljöcentrum and other environmental groups, and it was found that the incoming water to "Ryaverket" was high in organic compounds such as benzene, phenols, creosote [?] and others. The resulting sludge had high levels of chloroform, trichlorethylene, PCBs and other synthetic chlorinated compounds [for which there are no maximum levels stipulated].
"On November 29, 1985, a court in Gothenburg determined that the sludge had been the cause of the destroyed plants but declined compensation to the plaintiff. The case was a liability case and the defendant was not found guilty of negligence....[since] the company that sold the product had been found in compliance with the rules set forward by the SNV (environment protection agency). Nothing in those rules said anything about plant toxicity. The court also pointed out that the sewage treatment plant could not have anticipated that the sludge was a plant toxin [this is, incidentally, fundamental to the present opposition to sludge spreading: the presence of all possible elements and compounds damaging to life can never be predicted].
"In a subsequent appeal to the supreme court, the case was made that the science community has long known that sludge can be toxic to plants and that the product should have been tested for plant toxicity before being sold as a plant "fertilizer." In an out of court settlement the farmer was given $30,000 and a the use of a "clean" farm, rent-free."
Björn Gillberg concludes his article by saying:
"The Sewage treatment plants operates today, not as a purification plant, but as a smoke screen for uncontrolled spreading of environmental toxic substances. To call this practice "recycling" is fraudulent. It is very important to mobilize social opposition to this lobby."