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Eugene

(61,592 posts)
Thu Sep 12, 2019, 06:44 PM Sep 2019

PFAS: Concerns grow over tainted sewage sludge spread on croplands

Source: Associated Press

Concerns grow over tainted sewage sludge spread on croplands

By JOHN FLESHER and MICHAEL CASEY
September 12, 2019

LAPEER, Mich. (AP) — For more than 20 years, the eastern Michigan town of Lapeer sent leftover sludge from its sewage treatment plant to area farms, supplying them with high-quality, free fertilizer while avoiding the expense of disposal elsewhere.

But state inspectors ordered a halt to the practice in 2017 after learning the material was laced with one of the potentially harmful chemicals known collectively as PFAS, which are turning up in drinking water and some foods across the U.S.

Now, the city of 8,800 expects to pay about $3 million to have the waste treated at another facility and the leftover solids shipped to a landfill. Testing has found elevated PFAS levels in just one field where the sludge was spread, but farmers have lost an economical fertilizer source and hope more contamination doesn’t turn up.

“I feel bad for them,” said Michael Wurts, superintendent of the waste treatment plant, who ruefully recalls promoting sludge as an agricultural soil additive to growers in the community. “The city didn’t do anything malicious. We had no clue this was going on.”

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/32c65a5b3c27468ea2cdd2ce97848825

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PFAS: Concerns grow over tainted sewage sludge spread on croplands (Original Post) Eugene Sep 2019 OP
over 20 years ago I worked for a large sewage treatment plant in Denver mountain grammy Sep 2019 #1

mountain grammy

(26,568 posts)
1. over 20 years ago I worked for a large sewage treatment plant in Denver
Thu Sep 12, 2019, 08:11 PM
Sep 2019

the sludge was shipped to farmlands. the plant tried drying it to compost like material.. even patented the name: Metrogrow. The issue with these products were heavy metals. Couldn't get rid of them. they stopped the composting but continued to give away sludge for fertilzer for several years.

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