I am generally in favour of using biosolids as fertiliser, providing that it is free of heavy metals and other problematic chemicals, and that it has been matured enough to have turned into compost properly. I think that this is a valuable resource, and we should be returning nutrients to the soil as we remove them in lumber and other plants.

Years ago I used to buy pelletised sewage sludge from Seattle at Art Knapps for use in my flower beds. There was always a note that it should not be used on vegetable gardens if the vegetables were to be eaten by people. I notice the biosolids are being used on farms. Are they then safe for food production, or is it just on farms raising animals?

I think that a cow eating grass that has been fertilized with biosolids would ingest those heavy metals etc. as does the plant the cow is eating (my opinion) as far as I am concerned, those elements will be present in the meat on a molecular level at least. It is true that we ingest many things whose root origin cannot be 100% proven, and therefore we may be at risk anyway (like mercury in fish) but here we have the known possibility of contamination, why would'nt we avoid it?
metalman.

In China, a small town there has about two million people. Their biosolids debates must be very interesting.

The US EPA and waste industry are promoting the landspreading of Class B sewage sludge containing infectious human and animal prions on grazing lands, hay fields, and dairy pastures. This puts livestock and wildlife at risk of infection. They ingest large quantities of dirt and top dressed sludge with their fodder.

Prion infected Class A sludge "biosolids" compost is spread in parks, playgrounds, home lawns, flower and vegetable gardens - putting humans, family pets, and children with their undeveloped immune systems and hand-to-mouth "eat dirt" behavior at risk. University of Wisconsin prion researchers, working with $100,000 EPA grant and a $5 million Dept. of Defense grant, have found that prions become 680 times more infectious in certain types of soil. Prions can survive for over 3 years in soils. And human prions are 100,000 times more difficult to inactivate than animal prions

Recently, researchers at UC Santa Cruz, and elsewhere, announced that Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is a prion disease. "Prion" = proteinaceous infectious particle which causes always fatal TSEs (Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies) in humans and animals including BSE (Mad Cow Disease), scrapie in sheep and goats, and Chronic Wasting Disease in deer, elk and moose. Human prion diseases are AD and CJD (Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease,) and other rarer maladies. Infectious prions have been found in human and animal muscle tissue including heart, saliva, blood, urine, feces and many other organs.

Alzheimer's rates are soaring as Babyboomers age - there are now over 5.3 million AD victims in US shedding infectious prions in their blood, urine and feces, into public sewers. This Alzheimer's epidemic has almost 500,000 new victims each year. No sewage treatment process inactivates prions - they are practically indestructible. The wastewater treatment process reconcentrates the infectious prions in the sewage sludge.

Quotes from Dr. Joel Pedersen, Univ. of Wisconsin, on his prion research:

"
Our results suggest that if prions were to enter municipal waste water treatment systems, most of the agent would partition to activated sludge solids, survive mesophilic anaerobic digestion, and be present in
treated biosolids. Land application of biosolids containing prions could represent a route for their unintentional introduction into the environment. Our results argue for excluding inputs of prions to municipal wastewater treatment."



"Prions could end up in wastewater treatment plants via slaughterhouse drains, hunted game cleaned in a sink, or humans with vCJD shedding prions in their urine or faeces, Pedersen says"
(Note - This UW research was conducted BEFORE UCSC scientists determined that Alzheimer's Disease is another prion disease which may be shedding infectious prions into public sewers and Class B and Class A sludge "biosolids.)



Helane Shields, Alton, NH 03809

www.sludgevictims.com/pathogens/ALZHEIMERS-CJD-samepriondisease.doc


www.sludgevictims.com/pathgens/prions-composting.html

www.sludgevictims.com/pathogens/prion.html

That is very thought provoking information, hshields. I wonder, can prions be destroyed by incineration?
It all sounds pretty scary to me.
metalman.