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Something Stinks on Ontario Farmland

05 January 2010 Written by  J Michael Smith & Kevin Hamilton

Food, it’s an essential part for sustaining life. Simply put: “We are what we eat”. If the soil that grows that food is contaminated with toxins and carcinogens then, who, or what are we?

The soil food web is a complex ecology of nematodes, protozoa, beneficial bacteria and fungi. In one handful of soil there are approximately 6 billion micro-organisms at work. These organisms are constantly recycling nutrients and making them readily available for plants to uptake and provide the plant -and us- with nutrition. We now know that nutrients are recycled by these micro-organisms, especially mychorrhizal fungi.

Sewer sludge or the Orwellian sounding name, bio-solids, as the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMFRA) likes to refer to it as, has found a home on farm fields across this province. Sewer sludge is as gross and disgusting as you can imagine, the end waste product of everything ever flushed down a toilet or dumped down a drain.

Water treatment plants process water for consumption and filter out the sludge. The treated reclaimed water is then drunk by millions, and put back into rivers and lakes. The sludge is often put in a landfill, incinerated, or spread on farmers fields as a cheap source of nutrients. When farmers choose to spread sludge on their fields they often get the sludge for free or in some cases are even paid to do so.

Fertilizer can cost a farmer thousands of dollars a year depending on their soil fertility, thus to get fertilizer for free is a tempting offer. The down side is that the sludge likely contains hundreds, if not thousands of chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and heavy metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium, and copper. When sludge is applied it creates an environment that is lethal to soil ecology. Pharmaceuticals and heavy metals are detrimental to the soil ecology as a whole. Healthy soil with high levels of biodiversity holds over 50% more moisture than soil without, and allows natural nitrogen and available phosphorous to be released naturally and for free.

Hank Vanveen who works for Wessuc Inc., a Brantford based company that spreads sludge on Ontario farmland says that currently the sludge is tested twice a month for 11 heavy metals and bacteria like E-coli, but not for any pharmaceuticals or chemicals.

According to Vanveen “The levels [of pharmaceuticals] are so low they are not a concern at this point”. However, with no ongoing testing for pharmaceuticals or chemicals in the sludge or in the farmer’s soil there is currently no systemic mechanism in place to measure chemical or pharmaceutical contamination of soil that is being used to grow food where sludge has been spread.

OMAFRA’s website acknowledges that “biosolids may still contain some chemicals that are not beneficial to crops, but pose minimal risk to the environment”. However with no ongoing testing of the volume or types of chemical contamination, there is no way to conclude that there is only a minimal risk to the environment.

Furthermore, Environment Canada’s website acknowledges “land spreading of sewage or sewage sludge” is a source for ground water contamination. Once ground water is contaminated it can take a very long time for it to become safe to drink. Considering many people in rural communities rely on wells as their main source of water, the chance of their neighbors contaminating their well water is simply unacceptable.

Most of the chemicals dumped into the sewage system and the pharmaceuticals that are excreted from our bodies do not dissolve in water. They dilute and can easily end up in our waterways and in the sludge being spread on farmland. There is evidence that plants can absorb and bio-accumulate various chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Thus it is probable that food crops grown on land that has had sludge spread could be a medium for transferring these toxins into our bodies and back into the food chain.

According to the 2003 film Crap Shoot produced by the National Film Board of Canada, Ashbridges Bay, Toronto has relatively high concentrations of brominated flame retardants (BFR), and Canada’ effluent water has among the highest levels of pharmaceuticals in the developed world.

Dr. Lennart Hardel from Orebro Hospital in Sweden found that BFR act similar in our bodies as Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and both have been found in cancer patients. His research team found BFR in vegetables, like broccoli, as well as mother’s breast milk. BFR have been associated with cancer, particularly non hodgkin's lymphoma, and can disrupt the balance of thyroid hormones. When this research made it public that sludge in Sweden contained BFR, the public demanded the practice of spreading it on farmland be halted. Due to consumer backlash, the practice has been halted and sludge has been land filled in non-critical areas such as roads.

Considering that here in Canada there is no required testing of sludge for chemicals like BFR, many communities are concerned about the health implications of spreading it on farmland. Once heavy metals are put on soil they can never be removed. High concentrations of heavy metals in soil result in the land being unusable for agricultural purposes ever again.

There is no opportunity for the public to comment on the granting of a license to spread sludge on a piece of farmland, nor is their an opportunity for the public to appeal the license once it has been issued. Companies that spread sludge are not required to even notify neighbors that they are going to spread sludge, even when it can be spread as close as 25m from there residence, this according to the OMAFRA website.

On November 19th, 2009 the first civil suit in Canada was filed where an individual has claimed damages due to their proximity to the spread of sludge. Wendy Deavitt filed a civil suit against the Town of Cobourg, and two farmers, Terry and Sandra Greenly of Warkworth, for up to $650,000 in damages allegedly caused by the Greenly’s spread of bio-solids. Deavitt claims that living close to where they spread sludge, a Warkworth farm, has caused her family’s health problems and those of her animals.

Considering we know many chemicals can cause serious health problems, by not testing for them in sludge the Ontario Government is taking a position of willful ignorance about what contaminants are being spread on farmland.

According to “the precautionary principle”, science does not always give us immediate information about the health risks of using a particular product or process. Thus, when we do not know the long-term consequences of an action or product, we should exercise caution. From this perspective an industry should have to prove its product is safe, rather than assume it is safe until it is proven harmful.

“I think it’s [the precautionary principle] is a joke.” Says Vanveen. “If you would apply that principle to every aspect of your life you would live in a bubble. It doesn’t make any sense…I do not think the precautionary approach is appropriate in risk management.”

The Canadian Government would appear to agree. They rarely take a precautionary perspective in the drafting of its legislation. By taking a risk management approach the government to justifies exposing populations to perceived low risks, while maintaining business as usual. This approach can be found throughout Canadian regulations governing conventional agriculture practices, such as spraying chemical pesticides, genetically modifying crops, or in this case, using sludge as a fertilizer.

This said, many policy decisions in Europe are based on the precautionary principle. It would seem governments there are more interested in protecting its citizens from the unnecessary risks of industry.

Last modified on Saturday, 07 August 2010 19:40
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Published in January 2010, No. 57
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