Spreading pathogenic material on farmlands, with little supervision, is a medieval practice with potentially disastrous consequences.
by Maureen Reilly
July 18, 2000: It was a week into the Walkerton crisis, and Ontario was still in shock. Hundreds of people sick, deaths reported daily because the town drinking water was contaminated with E Coli 0157.
Where did the contamination come from? Experts suspected cattle feed lots, known to promote and spread this deadly strain of E Coli. After years of tracking disease outbreaks suspected to be caused by the land application of sewage sludge, I was ready to agree with the scientists who pointed the finger of suspicion at the farms that circled the town.
Then the question hit. What is Walkerton doing with their sewage sludge?
Two thousand people in this small town were sick. At least fifteen people died. All of them were excreting E Coli 0157. The Owen Sound Ministry of the Environment explained that while Walkerton normally spread the municipal sewage sludge on farmland, they determined last November that two or three heavy metals were too high.
The sludge was too toxic for farm application. The sludge has been in storage at the waste water treatment plant since last November.
A call to the municipality confirmed that they didn't know what to do with their sludge. They had hired a consulting firm out of Barrie to draw up a plan. The firm intended to recommend either dewatering the sludge and putting it in the local landfill or diluting it with less toxic sludge from some other jurisdiction and then putting it on farmland.
But whatever they decided they had to do it fast. It was June and they had about a month's worth of storage.
Astonishingly, the municipality attempted to dilute the sludge to bring down the levels of heavy metals. The addition of extra sewage further reduced their storage, but failed to bring down the heavy metals to acceptable levels.
The key question was this: do farmers want to have sewage sludge contaminated with a potentially fatal E Coli spread on their fields? The consultants were indifferent.
In their panic to reassure the local population, public health officials didn't have time to hear about the potential for off-site contamination from Walkerton's sewage. There were three days of phone calls before a new employee understood the issue and agreed to place the concern before the Medical Officer of Health.
Letters to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment asking whether the Walkerton facility had facilities authorized for eight months of sludge storage have gone unanswered. So did the question about what Walkerton will do with its sludge.
The Ontario Environmental Commissioner picked up both questions and wrote to the Ministry demanding an answer. None was forthcoming.
But in late July, a phone call to the Owen Sound office brought reassuring news. There are plans under way to ship Walkerton's sludge to the Greenways incinerator near London, Ontario.
But what of all the contaminated sewage that will be pumped out of septic tanks, portable toilets and holding tanks from infected people? That sewage and septage may well be spread on farmland next door.
How can we continue to spread pathogenic material with little or no supervision in massive amounts on farmlands near residences, wells, streams, and creeks?
There is no notification of neighbours, no right of appeal, no list of contaminants in the sludge, no guarantee to farmers or neighbours. It is a medieval practice with potentially disastrous consequences. In the cauldron of the waste water holding tank, E Coli 0157, competing with antibiotics, antimicrobials, and hospital wastes, could be mutating into a yet more virulent and successful pathogen: a super bug.
The expensive infrastructure of sewers and waste water treatment plants have lulled us into a false security that has now been broken. Sewering of communities does not protect us from poor environmental practices like mega hog barns, land application of sewage sludge and other waste water residues, and cattle feed lots.
We can no longer tolerate these practices if we expect to protect our drinking water.
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[From WS August/September 2000]