Protect Farmland from sewage sludge

Dr. Murray McBride, professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York,
in rebuttal to N Viro's article outlining the safety of its sludge product (and erroneously quoting him) in the Halifax Chronicle Herald: Protect Farmlands from Sewage Sludge

"Research has also shown that these chemicals can concentrate in the fat tissue of cattle. It is only reasonable to conclude that fire retardant chemicals, and many others, will increasingly enter the human food chain as well as natural ecosystems with continued sewage sludge application on land.

In summary, my position is that sewage sludge products should not be applied to our agricultural lands where food crops are grown. There are far too many unknowns and uncertainties about the amounts, behaviour and toxicity of the thousands of chemicals in sewage sludge products, and the precautionary principle must be applied here.

Farmlands must be protected as the irreplaceable resource that they are — we hold them in trust for future generations".


Also see Inconvenient Poop for more on the Nova Scotian sludge debate and the industry spin on the product.