Free Republic

The nine Democrats selected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to serve on the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis received a combined $198,000 from fossil fuel industry political action committees in the 2018 election cycle. The majority of the donations went to Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), who raised $117,000 from PACs connected to oil, gas, mining and electric utility corporations. Those donations constituted 6 percent of all contributions raised by Lujan. The rest of the appointees received scant funds from fossil fuel PACs. The data comes from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit that classifies campaign donations...

Southern California soon will begin sending sewage sludge into western Kings County -- up to 500,000 tons a year to a piece of farmland the size of Clovis. It's the San Joaquin Valley's newest mega-composting project, mixing treated human waste from 5.7 million people and woody debris from area farming. The compost will be used as soil nutrient on scrubby land at Westlake Farms to help grow cotton, wheat, pomegranates, pistachios and other crops. But make no mistake about this enterprise. The Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County -- serving 78 cities, including Long Beach and Beverly Hills -- bought...

Judge not, lest ye be judged. Not a bad rule of thumb. Being alive means making mistakes. Growing up means understanding that fact, and taking responsibility. Bad actors never take responsibility. Barack Obama honestly believes he's never made a mistake since getting elected; it's one of the few things I think he really means. Honestly. That's why I kind of like Herman Cain's response to the media thugs. Cain isn't playing their game. I hope he checkmates them, move after move. Never play by their rules. Always set your own rules, or they will kill you. You can see their...

1,500 tons of radioactive sludge cannot be buried Nearly 50,000 tons of sludge at water treatment facilities has been found to contain radioactive cesium as the result of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Over 1,500 tons is so contaminated that it cannot be buried for disposal. Water treatment facilities in eastern and northeastern Japan have been discovering sludge containing cesium. The health ministry says there is 49,250 tons of such sludge in 14 prefectures in eastern and northeastern Japan. A total of 1,557 tons in 5 prefectures, including Fukushima and Miyagi, was found to contain 8,000...

HAMBURG, Germany – Lower Saxony's agriculture minister says initial tests have confirmed that locally grown beansprouts are the likely cause for Germany's E. coli outbreak that has killed 22 people and sickened hundreds.

KOLONTAR, Hungary – Hungary's top investigative agency opened a criminal probe into the toxic sludge flood Wednesday while the European Union and environmental groups warned the disaster could spread down the Danube and have long-term consequences for half a dozen nations.

Wife of Rep. Conyers begins federal prison sentence By Michael O'Brien - 09/10/10 04:28 PM ET The wife of Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) reported to a federal prison in West Virginia on Friday to begin a 37-month sentence on corruption charges. Monica Conyers, a former Detroit city councilwoman, reported to the Alderson Federal Prison Camp this afternoon 20 minutes before deadline, the Detroit Free Press reported. Conyers pleaded guilty last year for taking bribes to influence a vote on a sludge disposal contract in Detroit. She has since attempted to withdraw her plea. Her husband, the chairman of the House...

The Associated Press is reporting that the Salinas-based company Fresh Express is recalling some of its bagged lettuce because of a positive test for E. Coli. What the AP and others continue to ignore is any possible connection between the use of treated sewage sludge and municipal waste water on farms in the Salinas Valley. Certainly consumers would want to know if the food they are buying is being poisoned by cities looking for a cheap way to dispose of their sewage sludge.

When First Lady Michelle Obama planted an organic vegetable garden on the White House lawn in March 2009, she hoped to both set an example of healthy eating and to grow tasty edibles for her daughters and husband. But Michelle's organic dream has been dashed by a nasty toxic legacy lurking in the soils of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It turns out that a previous Presidential gardening team had used sewage sludge for fertilizer

Reports: Wife of Rep. Conyers threatened with indictment @ 3:42 pm by Michael O'Brien Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers, the wife of longtime Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) received a letter Tuesday indicating a pending indictment from federal authorities on corruption-related charges. Conyers received a pre-indictment letter instructing her to reach a plea deal with prosecutors by the end of the week or face charges, according to Detroits two papers, the Free Press and News. The investigation involves whether Conyers took bribes to switch her vote on a $1.2 billion contract with Synagro Technologies to handle disposal of Detroit's sludge. Conyers,...

For decades, Vivian Milligan complained that the government ignored the Ramapough Mountain community when Ford Motor Co. dumped a sea of waste in their Upper Ringwood community.   Longtime environmental activist Vivian Milligan says her heart was "pounding" when former state DEP chief invited her to Washington D.C. for her senate confirmation hearing as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.  On Wednesday, Milligan, who rarely ventures out of the area, plans to make her first trip to Washington D.C. – at age 57 — as a guest of former DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson.  The U.S. Senate is expected to confirm...

Our reporting partners at the Detroit News are reporting that the FBI has electronic surveillance that links Detroit City Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers to the Synagro scandal. The evidence reportedly proves that Conyers received either a payment or payments in connection with the city-approved sludge contract.

BALTIMORE — Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil. Families were assured the sludge was safe and were never told about any harmful ingredients. Nine low-income families in Baltimore row houses agreed to let researchers till the sewage sludge into their yards and plant new grass. In exchange, they were given food coupons as well as the free lawns as part of a study published in 2005 and funded by the Housing and Urban Development Department.

That's it. Nothing following.

Want to purchase some locally produced, organic fertilizer for you garden? Unfortunately it contains arsenic, lead and mercury amongst other interesting additives. And it may spontaneously explode and burn while in storage. Not interested? Then how about buying acclaimed Foodland Ontario vegetables and fruit, grown on a less refined version of the same ‘natural’ fertilizer? These are not available at present, as Toronto’s sewage pelletizer, which made the fertilizer, burned down in July 2003. And biosolids ‘cake,’ the less processed poop, is not exactly popular with the province’s farmers. But they could be coming soon to a store near you,...

Hundreds of photographs have been taken of British servicemen mistreating Iraqi civilians, it was claimed tonight. Troops serving in southern Iraq have been swapping the pictures among themselves, said the unnamed soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment who sparked furore over the weekend by releasing photos apparently showing UK personnel abusing an Iraqi prisoner. The potentially explosive claims, if proven, would contradict Prime Minister Tony Blair's assurance that any misconduct in British ranks was "exceptional" and limited to a handful of servicemen. Doubts were cast today on the authenticity of the photos, published in the Daily Mirror yesterday, which appeared...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A former government scientist accused the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday of knowingly using unreliable data when it denied a petition to halt the use of sewage sludge for fertilizer. The microbiologist, David Lewis, testified at a House subcommittee hearing that the EPA used data about sludge quality at two Georgia dairy farms that had already been rejected by Georgia state officials as "completely unreliable, possibly even fraudulent." He asked the House Resources Committee's subcommittee on energy and mineral resources to call on the EPA for an internal investigation of the moratorium and other matters. Lewis, a...

E.P.A. to Study Use of Waste From Sewage as Fertilizer By JENNIFER 8. LEE The Environmental Protection Agency will sponsor a series of scientific and public health studies on the safety of using sewage sludge as fertilizer, including nationwide chemical tests and building a human health complaint database. The studies, in combination with the agency's announcement on Wednesday that it will more closely regulate 15 chemicals found in sewage sludge fertilizer, are part of the agency's efforts to address public concerns about an agricultural practice that has grown rapidly around the country over the last decade. The announcements also reflect...

can anyone confirm this? Their heads are exploding.

Potomac Sludge We often write about Washington dirt, but it turns out we had no idea. Listen to this tale about the water pollution our nation's capital suffers, and all because its residents won't follow the laws they wrote. We're talking about the Washington Aqueduct, a treatment facility that provides drinking water to about a million residents. In purifying that water, the Aqueduct creates thousands of tons of chemically treated sludge a year. What happens to that goo? Well, the Army Corps of Engineers dumps it into the storied Potomac River, in the dead of night, including via the C&O...