Compilation and comments by C. Lindstrom, P.E., former Environmental Attaché to the Swedish Embassy, Wash. DC. [From 1973-1975 head of section and secretary for the expert committees on waste treatment and protection of lakes, rivers and groundwater in the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.]
Introduction.
Sweden was the first country in the world to apply large scale advanced sewage treatment to the urban areas. This was made possible in the 1960s and 1970s by a strong economy and an environmental wave triggered by the rapidly progressing degradation of lakes, rivers and estuaries and by publications such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and Hans Palmstierna's Pillage, Poisoning and Famine. We soon made the "discovery" that the better we cleaned the sewage, the worse did the sludge become. Some farmers using large applications of sludge on their land found that they had unexplained damage to crops, both the plants above ground and their root systems, and they stopped accepting sludge. Shortly thereafter a ban was placed on using sludge on agricultural land.
The three cheapest ways of disposing of sludge have been ocean dumping, incineration, and landfilling. Ocean dumping and incineration have also been effective ways of concealing the source of the sludge and therefore of its damaging constituents. But ocean dumping was banned, and the rules for incineration were made so stringent that it ceased to be a cheap method of disposal. Landfilling was left. But landfilling, unlike ocean dumping and incineration, does not effectively hide the source of the sludge, and--perhaps at least in part for this reason?--there has been a systematic process of shutting down landfills. In some relation to all these policy changes, the sewering industry reinvented itself to be a producer of "fertilizer," and a push for "land application" of sewage sludge became policy.
The following excerpts are only a few examples of the alarm that this new push has caused.
Dr. Göran Petterson, professor of Chemical, environmental science at Chalmers Institute of Technology in Gothenburg speaking at a Conference called "Tomorrow's Recycling" held at the Agricultural University of Ulltuna:
"It is irresponsible to spread sludge on our agricultural land. Farmland is the most sensitive place to which we can apply sludge, since it is the base for food production....Our existing sewage treatment plants ought to be decommissioned." [from the summary introduction in the article]
"There are some 50,000 different chemicals made and used in our society. Of those there is only a small number that do not end up in the sewage treatment sludge....Not all are dangerous but each one is breaks down into new compounds with unknown effects."
"That sludge application on farmland would constitute recycling is a misunderstanding....It is as far away from recycling as we can get."
Bengt Ingerstam, Secretary General of the Swedish Consumers Coalition, in an open letter to the Swedish National Farmers' Association:
"Can we find a way to keep the farmland clean and sustainable? ... The assets that are gambled with [farmland] are too important to be used as a dumping ground for our society's waste products."
"Our agricultural land is our most important future capital, the foundation for future generations' survival, regardless of how it is viewed by the financial market."
(This statement was made in reaction to an agreement between the Farmers' Association, the Swedish Environment Protection Agency and the Sewer Treatment.)
Björn Gillberg, Scientist, Miljöcentrum and environment/consumer advocate. The following excerpts are from the editorial magazine Environment and the Future (Miljö och Framtid), No. 6,1996:
The farm turned waste dump.
"Conventional [chemical] phosphate and nitrogen fertilizers contain, in fact, lower levels of heavy metals [than are found in sludge] and none of modern industrial society's synthetic chemicals."
"The rules set by SNV (the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency) regulate how much of the nitrogen and phosphorous can be provided through sludge. The agency has also determined the maximum levels of lead, cadmium, copper, chromium, mercury, nickel and zinc allowed in sludge [to be land applied]. There are also maximum levels of these metals allowed for agricultural soils. If these levels are exceeded, sludge may not be applied to that soil. [However] there are no regulated maximum levels for synthetic or organic chemicals such as solvents, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, disinfecting chemicals, or hormone mimicking chemicals. In other words, it has been and still is permitted to spread sludge on farmland containing unlimited levels of DDT, PCB, phenols, chlorine phenols, dioxins, etc. Many of these compounds are taken up by growing plants and will become part of our food. Furthermore, a grazing cow ingests on average about two pounds of soil per day!" [And that ingested soil would, of course, contain sludge.]
The GRYAB Case
In the 1970s Lars Wideström, a landscape gardener/grower, became a victim of the 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 threatening 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."
Lennart Hardell, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Örebro Regional Hospital, Department of Oncology, in a letter addressed to the Swedish National Nature Protection Association, March 6, 1997:
Regarding sludge distribution on farmland
"I have observed with anxiety that it is once again allowed to spread sludge on Swedish farm land. My opinion is that the presence of PCBs [one of unregulated chemicals] alone justifies a ban on using sludge in agriculture.
We have earlier documented the relationship between specific PCB derivatives and malignant non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Research done at Umeå University, Environmental Chemistry (Dr. G. Lindström and Dr. Bert van Bavel). We are presently about to document similar findings concerning breast cancer, where dioxin-like PCB varieties (coplanar) are showing significantly higher levels in women with breast cancer after menopause.
"Several studies show reduced immune defense from PCB along with cancer occurrence, slower fetus growth and impairment of intelligence in children who were exposed to PCB during fetus development. A study about to be published shows a correlation between intake of fatty Baltic fish and PCB concentrations in women with breast cancer, supports other studies in Sweden as well as internationally conducted studies."
Drs. Göran Pettersson, Magdalena Svanstrom, Gunnar Barrefors, and Susan Björkqvist, PE, from the Department of Chemical Environmental Sciences, Chalmers Institute of Technology
Open letter to KRAV [a group issuing environmental labels for healthy food).
"We belong to the group of environmental researchers, who have seen the increased importance that KRAV labeling has had on ecological agriculture and health in food products. We therefore react with horror to the rumors that KRAV is even considering to support or accept spreading of sludge from municipal sewage treatment plants on farmland. Several studies show that the sludge contains a frightening collection of environment and health-hazardous compounds from households, industry and other sources connected to the sewers. It is our judgment that food grown on KRAV-endorsed land permitting sludge will undermine the confidence that consumers have for KRAV products. We very strongly recommend that you completely repudiate such sludge use and spreading on farm land."
Rolf Rosendahl, Kurt Svedros, representating the Swedish National Health Association (Riksförbundet Hälsofrämjandet) in an open letter to the Swedish Food and Drug Administration. The letter reiterates the many reasons why sludge on farmland is dangerous, irresponsible and likely to result in a decline of national health. They place especial emphasis in this letter on the growing concern over hormone interfering chemistry. Their demands are summarized as follows:
1. "That, until further notice, the Swedish Food and Drug Administration stop all spreading of uncontrolled sludge on farmland, especially with concern to hormone mimicking compounds.
2. "That the Food and Drug Administration draft regulations for safe levels of chemicals measured in the water supply impacted by agriculture with sludge application."
Comments by Carl Lindstrom
The "lobby" referred to earlier--the lobby for the sewage treatment plant owners and operators supported by the interested industry partnerships (engineering companies, pipe manufacturers, large waste management contractors, etc.)--around the world is very strong and very well financed, often from public funds. Lately, this lobby has launched a campaign to promote sludge as "fertilizer" and has for this purpose created a new vocabulary. Sludge has become "bio-solids," and spreading unknown and potentially toxic, carcinogenic, teratogenic and hormone mimicking chemicals on farmland is referred to as "recycling." There can be no other purpose for this change of language than to deceive the public concerning the real content and origin of this product.
This lobby has a lot to loose if sludge cannot be spread on farmland: if thoroughly investigated, it would eventually face opposition to the heart of its operation and consequently would face the same situation as the nuclear power industry face: the cost of operation will be too high when all aspects of the operation are subject to unrestricted liability.
If, on the other hand, growing food on sludge should become a wide spread practice, there will be no particular area to correlate health and environmental damage to sludge, and the increased frequency of cancer and other disease will simply be blamed on general environmental pollution. From the sludge spreading industry and its lobby's point of view, to rapidly and massively make this practice standard is therefore of the greatest importance. Which may explain the lobbying blitz that is now everywhere: the toxification of our agricultural assets are promoted as a brave new green world where "recycling" is reinvented. And when we wake up to the nightmare of a significantly weaker and sicker world population, there will predictably be the "we-could-not-anticipate-this" stance from corporations and allied policy makers claiming their innocence based on ignorance.