Biopharming? Treated sewage sludge, here about to be spread on fields, commonly contains antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals.
Credit: U.S. Geological Survey
Posted on 01/24/2009 4:40:35 PM PST by neverdem
Biopharming? Treated sewage sludge, here about to be spread on fields, commonly contains antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals.
Credit: U.S. Geological Survey
What's the downside to clean water? Dirty sludge. A nationwide survey of sewage treatment plants shows that the sludge they produce--the residue from cleaning up wastewater--contains a wide variety of toxic metals, pharmaceuticals, flame retardants, and other compounds, including some antibiotics in surprisingly high concentrations. That's significant because every year more than half of the roughly 7 million metric tons of these so-called biosolids produced in the United States are applied as fertilizer to farm fields.
Whether the concentrations of these chemicals pose any health threat isn't known, but the new data, released last week, will allow the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to begin assessing the risks. "This is a very important study," says Rolf Halden, an environmental scientist at Arizona State University, Tempe.
Wastewater treatment plants remove excess nutrients and pollutants that would otherwise harm aquatic life. A side benefit is that the nitrogen and phosphorus in sewage is recycled and used as fertilizer on some U.S. agricultural land. But biosolids also contain chemicals, such as carcinogenic dioxins, that don't break down during treatment. In 2001, EPA conducted a survey of wastewater treatment plants and concluded the concentrations of dioxins were too low to pose a health threat. Five years later, prompted in part by public concerns over drugs in the environment, the agency started testing for a much broader range of biosolid contaminants, including 97 pharmaceuticals and related compounds.
Many of the 145 chemicals tested for were present nationwide. Biosolids from all of the 74 large treatment plants surveyed contained the same 27 metals, but only zinc, molybdenum, and nickel exceeded standards for application to fields. Almost all of the 11 flame retardants on the list were present in every sample. Twelve of the 72 pharmaceuticals were similarly ubiquitous.
Two of the most common drugs were the antibiotics triclocarban and ciprofloxacin. Although the average concentrations were similar to those in previous small-scale studies, several samples harbored up to 440 parts per million of triclocarban, which is added to antimicrobial soap and other personal care products. That's almost 10 times higher than ever reported in biosolids and "astonishingly high," Halden says. One question is whether the antibiotics harm soil microbes, or aquatic life if enough leaches into streams, Halden says. "We really don't have the answer."
An EPA official, who has not received permission to speak about the results, agrees that the concentrations of triclocarban "intuitively look high" but says the agency can't yet say whether they or any other of the detected chemicals pose a risk to vulnerable humans or wildlife. "It's not appropriate at this point to speculate on significance of the results," he says. In the next year, EPA expects to complete risk assessments on 10 chemicals in the survey.
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By order of our messiah Lord Barack Hussein Obama all citizens are required to stop pooping...immediately...violaters will be taxed on a per poop basis. Repeat offenders will be executed.
This stuff used to go straight to the landfill. I wonder when they started using it as fertilizer?
and who doesn't believe advertising works - look at the increase in the household use of "antimicrobial soap", in just recent years, so naturally the rate of the chemicals therein MUST show up in the water that came from our bathrooms and kitchens!!!!!!
the question is: is this fostering another situation like what happens when people take too many antibiotics too often - we kill too many "good" germs in our system and the bad germs develop resistance to the antibiotics
can we do the same type of thing to the growing systems in the soil?
Former Vice-President Albert Gore, Jr. has announce the formation of a new company. This company will provide poop off-sets for those unable to comply with the messiah's new edict prohibiting pooping. Mr. Gore assures the public that all poop off-sets will be environmentally neutral.
I think the farms sewage sludge is typically used on are non-food farms such as sod farms.
The farmers quit using it around here because it had too much salt in it.
It is usually composted and sold under the name Milorganite across the country ... it is not recomended for food crops ... it’s been sold this way for at least 20 years ,, buy it at any lawn and garden center..
Idiot comment.
Assuming the sludge contains such contaminants, how is dumping it into rivers supposed to be better for the environment?
You want to break down biosludge? Send it through a “Plasma arc trash reduction” device, which extracts the energy found in the organic part of the sludge as synfuel, and reduces all kinds of chemical compounds to their constituent atoms, destroying ALL pathogens, common enviornmentally dangerous chemicals and their metabolites, and concentrating most heavy metals in the slag that drains off the reaction chamber This process takes quite a bit of energy on startup, but when running, it generates MORE energy than it consumes, and the products, the syngas and the slag (mostly silica), which also contains the metals found in the biosludge, as stipples and striations in the cooled slag. Or the slag can be crushed up as aggregate and added to concrete or used for rosdbuilding.
This stuff is a hydrogen mine, and could be used to produce the huge quantities of hydrogen needed for the coming hydrogen economy.
TDP would solve this problem in large measure; the product would end up for the most part distilled water, gas and oil with a small amount of carbon solids. Google up TDP oil for more information.
About 10 to 15 years ago the EPA started pushing the spreading of sludge and its equally nasty cousin septage. Septage is quite literally what you get when you pump out a porta-potty.
Due to the push from the EPA most states now actually encourage farmers to go into the business of spreading sludge and septage on their fields. And they make all kinds of assumptions about its safety to do so. For example, in our state the presumption is that the septage you spread on a field 50 feet from a stream won't end up in the stream.
The whole idea is poorly thought out, and no doubt will result in a new crop of Superfund sites when a future generation figures out the full effects of spreading sludge.
One of murphy's laws is that "Nothing gets clean unless something else is made dirty" (from an old poster long thrown out by 'Th Little Lady'). Kind of gives the eco-nuts a problem they would rather not think about.
Sewage sludge application - or biosolids - is a highly regulated field. Assuming everyone is following the laws - set forward by the EPA and enforced by each state’s environmental regulatory arm - biosolid application should be fine. There are limits of the heavy metals allowed per square foot, etc. Typically, industrial sludge still goes to landfill.
Septage - or the liquid from septic tanks - is untreated. That is not the same thing. Biosolids have been through a wastewater treatment facility suitable for land application - not food crops, though. It doesn’t smell great, but in theory, shouldn’t be harmful. Lots of folks question whether the pathogens can survive the process and would be harmful to animals and humans. Other folks question whether the regulation process is sound - in other words, are there more heavy metals - like molybdenum for one - that kinda stuff being put back in too high a concentration.
google up “The Case for Caution” and Cornell and you’ll see a whole list of issues of concern. Yes, it’s good that the bad stuff is out of the water and put in the sludge, but putting it on cropland can be problematic. EPA bureaucrats (under both D and R administrations) tried to push one-size- fits-all regulations for the whole country, and laid into anyone (inside or outside EPA) who differed with them.
“It is usually composted and sold under the name Milorganite across the country ... it is not recommended for food crops ... it’s been sold this way for at least 20 years ,, buy it at any lawn and garden center..”
Makes a pretty good deer repellent too.
Just a little food for thought..
3 LA Rams players developed ALS, statistically unusual.
Bob Waters, Matt Hazeltine, Gary Lewis.
Looking for a link it was determined that Milorganite was used on the playing field.
Here’s part of an article..dated 1987
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,963607-1,00.html
....In Waters’ case, however, this seemingly random stroke of misfortune soon began to look like a clue to a medical mystery. Shortly after his diagnosis, Waters learned that his former teammate Matt Hazeltine, a linebacker, had also been stricken with ALS. Last December Waters heard of a third ALS casualty from the 1964 squad — Fullback Gary Lewis. Both Hazeltine and Lewis died earlier this winter. Waters was stunned. Was it mere coincidence?..
Should have added that a definite link was NOT found (as of 1987)but several other cluster cases seem to point to heavy metals possibly being a trigger.
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