Sludge as pasture fertilizer

[sstterry]

Spread it on lawns, cemeteries, forestry plantations, city parks, golf courses, athletic fields... just nowhere that human foodstuffs or livestock feeds are gonna be produced.

When you occasionally see a recall of fruits or vegetables from Mexico it is because they have tried to fertilize using biosolids. It is not often, but the next time you hear of a recall or some outbreak of E. coli ect. that is the most likely cause.

 

[Stocker Steve]

What do you do with that stuff then?

It was cheaper to spread it on ag land rather than landfill it. Some organic truck farms in particular used it repeatedly. Now they are loaded up the "forever chemicals" and some out of business. Others are not testing...

The underlying issue is you are taking a huge volume of material, consolidating it, and then putting it on a farm where it leaches into the water. I would have your well tested if this has occurred in the past.

Michigan is doing a lot of testing. Could be a reaction to the lead water pipe problem they had recently. Drinking water can be cleaned up but the process is expensive and requires a large new plant.

My guess is the current landfill procedures do not protect groundwater enough...

 

[BlondeD]

It was cheaper to spread it on ag land rather than landfill it. Some organic truck farms in particular used it repeatedly. Now they are loaded up the "forever chemicals" and some out of business. Others are not testing...

The underlying issue is you are taking a huge volume of material, consolidating it, and then putting it on a farm where it leaches into the water. I would have your well tested if this has occurred in the past.

Michigan is doing a lot of testing. Could be a reaction to the lead water pipe problem they had recently. Drinking water can be cleaned up but the process is expensive and requires a large new plant.

My guess is the current landfill procedures do not protect groundwater enough...

About 20 years ago a friend of mine got a hefty contract with a county north of Memphis to take their residue and inject it a few inches.......my memory is fuzzy on what depth it really was.....across the fields and pasture land that they had various degrees of access to, via ownership and rental agreements. Seems like his "quality control" on the depth of injection and other factors got some heavy attention from several agencies and individuals......with a lot of lawyers involved. He was doing a sloppy job......and with the highly erodeable soil profiles entering into the equation, made a mess.......and lost several $$$ before done.

 

[Redgully]

We used to run a fruit packing business and one orchard used sludge. It was an old gravel pit they planted up with citrus. I can tell you it grew exceptional fruit but took me a couple of years and feeling really hungry one day to eat a mandarin. Tasted like any other.

I would never use it, seeing what people flush down their toilets. Old engine oil, old chemicals they want to dispose of. Every drug known to mankind, legal and not. Cleaning chemicals. Vomit and viruses. Condoms, anyone watch Mike Rowe and dirty jobs? The guy who pumps the portable toilet we have on a property told me most of what they pump is just paper and water. He told me lots of places use baby wipes and he said they don't break down and block up everything. One day when he was pumping ours his pipe got block, had to pull pipes apart and pulled out a mobile phone! None of my workers mentioned losing a phone!

 

[Dave]

The town south of me when I was still in Washington bought a 300/400 acre farm and built a sewage treatment plant there. The man I bought my hay from had a contract to take the hay off that farm. I fed that hay for 3 or 4 years. My job at the conservation district involved testing soil, manure, and hay. I never tested anything at that sewage treatment plant but they did and I did see the results. There was nothing there that worried me. I would take that hay in a heart beat today.

 

[shaz]

It was cheaper to spread it on ag land rather than landfill it. Some organic truck farms in particular used it repeatedly. Now they are loaded up the "forever chemicals" and some out of business. Others are not testing...

The underlying issue is you are taking a huge volume of material, consolidating it, and then putting it on a farm where it leaches into the water. I would have your well tested if this has occurred in the past.

Michigan is doing a lot of testing. Could be a reaction to the lead water pipe problem they had recently. Drinking water can be cleaned up but the process is expensive and requires a large new plant.

My guess is the current landfill procedures do not protect groundwater enough...

I would bet imported fruit uses human sludge extensively.

 

[mtnhunter]

So I have been reading these threads and see valid points on both sides. I have worked at the County wastewater plant for the last 35 years. I am the responsible official in charge of the Land Application of residuals ( Spreading human waste on fields). The treatment process we use meets all EPA requirements for beneficial reuse of organics. I guess the question here is do the EPA regulations go far enough to protect public health. None of the analysis we are required to do addresses prescription drug residues. Using sludge as a soil amendment has helped me and other farmers that use it increase hay and pasture yields substantially.

Our county does not have any industries such as nickel plating operations or other heavy metals so the analysis of our sludge shows very low levels of heavy metals such as cadmium. We heat the sludge at 450 degrees and dry it to > 90% solids. The worst part of using it is the dust created because it is so dry. I think it is a more natural product than chemical fertilizers but there is insufficient data to tell us if this is a problem or just part of a long list of things that is going to kill us all at some point

 

[J+ Cattle]

I would bet imported fruit uses human sludge extensively.

I would bet that it's a lot more than just fruit, anything coming from other parts of the world is suspect, especially Mexico and China.

 

[Nick Wagner]

Those PFOS and PFAS, commonly known as forever chemicals because they don't break down in nature, are currently being discovered in Maine as well as the case in Michigan. I believe they have been traced back to a chrome plating plant that flushed into the local wastewater treatment facility, which then spread sludge on surrounding farms for decades. These are man made compounds and are being found in plants and animals grown on those farms. It's not the human manure that's the problem, it's the chemical contamination. Last I read about them, the folks were scared because tests showed those chemicals in their children, at much higher levels than the EPA considered safe. Most of us would react that way if it was our children involved.

 

[SmokinM]

I would bet that it's a lot more than just fruit, anything coming from other parts of the world is suspect, especially Mexico and China.

Look at how they raise shrimp in China etc.… it will make look for wild Gulf caught on the bag for sure. I limit the shrimp I eat out also.

 

[Lucky_P]

Agree Nick. My undergraduate studies were in Microbiology. If I'd not gained admission to veterinary school, I was headed for a career in sewage treatment. I'm not in the least worried about pathogens or drug residues in 'biosolids' coming out of a municipal sewage treatment plant, with regard to safety as a sort-of 'organic' fertilizer/supplement.
But... heavy metals, 'forever' chemicals from local industries - large or small - and stuff that the unthinking/unknowing general public flushes down the drain/toilet on a daily basis are much more concerning to me, if their final disposition is to be applied to agricultural land.

SmokinM... if I'm shopping for fish/seafood, and the bag says 'product of China'... I ain't buying... hell, there's no guarantee that it was not floating belly-up, when they scooped it out of a big vat of sewage soup.

 

[Hpacres440p]

Dried sludge probably shouldn't worry us as much as the fresh stuff left when there aren't enough port-a-Johns at the end of the rows…information learned long ago working a summer in the fields

 

[Banjo]

My Dad was a Korean veteran...he said they told them not to eat the local vegetables, but they could eat the local fruit from fruit trees.....everything was fertilized with human waste...the vegetable plants would take up the pathogens, but the fruit trees wouldn't. That's what he told me once.

 

[TexasBred]

When you occasionally see a recall of fruits or vegetables from Mexico it is because they have tried to fertilize using biosolids. It is not often, but the next time you hear of a recall or some outbreak of E. coli ect. that is the most likely cause.

The outhouse if usually pretty close to the end of the row.

 

[hurleyjd]

When my brother built his last house he covered his lawn heavy with it and planted grass. Darn grass looked like it stayed a beatiful green almost year round....AND occasionally you'll get a good tomato,cucumber or cateloupe come up as well. :lol2:

Get any MARIJUANA plants. My nephew had the contract to do some of thier settling beds one summer he tod me you would be surprised as what came up. including MARIJUANA.

 

[Ferd]

I read a story about PFAS contamination of farms in Maine. Many were organic. The bio solids had been spread for fertilizer decades earlier. The chemicals never break down. They are used for waterproofing, heat control and some other things. If the town manufactured fabrics that were waterproofed the biological solids contained PFAS.
The farms had high levels of the chemicals in their wells, irrigation water, chickens, cattle, milk, vegetables, eggs, and in the farmers' family's blood. They were killing and disposing of the animals. Plowing under the vegetables, and unable to grow anything for consumption. The land has zero value for farming.
I worked in the WWTP in the Marathon Refinery in Robinson Illinois for 36 years. The solids could not be put on farms. Before I knew better I thought that I would be willing to have municipal wwtp solids put on the pasture, but there's no way to know everything that every customer is dumping in down the drain. PFAS are carcinogenic plus a list of other things.

 

[Rmc]

To me it depends on how /if it has been treated prior to application.
If it land applied strait from the septic tank. Or some treatment plants separate the solids from the liquid prior to any treatment of the waste . This type of sludge would be high in all kinds of bacteria,virus and who knows what else.
If the solids are treated and tested prior to application might be ok.
If solids are treated then composted before application would be the best option.
There have been some interesting studies lately . Some show that land applying sludge results in drug resistant strains of bacteria ect.
Other studies show that even if the discharged water from sewer treatment can have a huge effect on the reproductive abilities of fish even if it meets all current epa treatment requirements.
This is due to the drug residue in the treated water.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Other studies show that even if the discharged water from sewer treatment can have a huge effect on the reproductive abilities of fish even if it meets all current epa treatment requirements.
This is due to the drug residue in the treated water.

Worst thing is the drugged-up fish don't bite hard.

 

[Rmc]

Worst thing is the drugged-up fish don't bite hard.

Nope worst thing is no fish due to low or no natural reproduction because of physical changes due to effects of pharmaceutical residue in the water.
Not sure if I would want to eat them either.

 

[littletom]

Guy used it couple farms over few years ago. It was dry dusty smelled but not like raw.
Friend of mine leased a farm few years ago. That had all kinds of nasty spread on it. Owner had methane digester and spread whatever from that on fields. I saw the soil test they were impressive. Stuff went into that be more concerning that cooked poop from town