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Sewage and Industrial Sludges
The Sierra Club opposes the land application of sewage sludges and encourages EPA and industry to investigate and support alternative solutions for sludge disposal. Here's the Sierra Club Guidance on how rural communities can reduce the health and environmental risks from sludge spreading.
Please contact the Zero Waste Committee if you have questions about sewage or industrial sludges.
Need Help Fighting Sludge Problems?
Those fighting sludge in their communities will also find helpful documents and links posted on www.sludgefacts.org and www.loudounnats.org.
The Perils of Risk Assessment
Unlike other countries, who want to protect the health of their agricultural soils for future generations, the US regulates sludge by using the principle of risk assessment. Risk assessment is a notoriously unreliable tool to determine whether a practice is sustainable or a product is safe. When used to determine the
potential hazards resulting when highly complex unpredictable contaminated waste mixtures, such as sludges, are being deposited on complex terrestrial ecosystems, risk assessment, even based on honest assumptions, can become an exercise in futility. But when risk assessment is based on limited data, unsupportable assumptions, and research that is funded by conflicted individuals, agencies, or corporations that profit from its conclusion, then risk assessment becomes a tool of scientific deception.
For a detailed critique of a recent EPA draft that uses risk assessment to defend the safety of sludge spreading, see the public comment submitted to EPA Docket ID No.EPA-HQ-ORD 2008-0547.
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy has just published a factsheet entitled Smart Guide on Sludge Use and Food Production.
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