Nexus - 0406 - New Times Magazine-pages

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... GLOBAL NEWS ... NEWS — US FARMERS USING TOXIC WASTE AS FERTILISER! — Acoine to a lengthy investigation and reports printed in the Seattle Times in July, massive amounts of this country's hazardous industrial wastes, "including such toxic heavy metals as lead, cadmium, arsenic and even radioactive substances", are being incorporated into fertilisers that are unwittingly being applied to agricultural lands all over the United States. This is being done with the approval and even the blessing of the EPA. How could this be? Rail cars arrive at Bay Zinc Co. in Moxee City, Washington, carrying toxic waste from two Oregon steel mills. Bay Zinc has a federal permit to store hazardous wastes in two of its silos. The toxic waste goes into the top of each silo and is then taken out of the bottom as raw material for fertiliser. According to the Seattle Times piece, Bay Zinc's president Dick Camp said, "When it goes into our silo, it's a hazardous waste. When it comes out of the silo, it's no longer regulated. The exact same material. Don't ask me why. That's the wisdom of the EPA." The Seattle Times investigated what it reports can only be described as a nightmare: industrial waste laden with toxic heavy metals being recycled as fertiliser ingredients and being spread legal- ly over crop fields across the USA. In Gore, Oklahoma, a uranium processing plant is spraying 9,000 acres of grazing land with 10 million gallons per year of its low-level radioactive waste by licensing it as liquid fertiliser. State and federal officials approved the "fertiliser" in 1986. The material is being piped to 75 acres of Bermuda grass pasture where up to 400 cattle graze. A two-nosed cow, a nine-legged frog and 124 cases of cancer and birth defects in families living near the plant have been reported. In Tifton County, Georgia, five southeastern steel mills paid Sogreen Corp. to take their waste, a dust consisting of 10% zinc, 3.6 % lead, cadmium and chromium. Sogreen dubbed its product (a mixture of one part waste plus three parts lime) "Lime Plus". Zinc was listed as a micronutrient, but there was no mention of lead, cadmium and chromium as ingredients. Over 1,000 acres of peanut crops grown for human consumption were killed by the mixture. Farmers who used it are trying to detoxify their soils. They don't want their names or farms identified. Deer Trail, Colorado, farmers have doubts about Denver's plan to cycle liquid waste from the Lowry landfill—one of the worst Superfund sites in the country—through its sewage treatment facility, then combine it with sewage sludge and apply it to a 50,000-acre wheat farm owned by the government. The Times states, The EPA is considering the novel disposal plan in a ruling that may set a precedent for new ways to clean up Superfund sites. A public comment period ended June 30." Stoller Chemical of Charleston sent 3,000 tons of cadmium- and lead-loaded waste for fertiliser to Bangladesh and Australia in 1992. They did not notify the EPA of these especially toxic ship- ments, and a US attorney noted that, "We just happened to catch it." The company was fined US$1 million. In the meantime, before it was recalled, the fertiliser had been spread on rice fields in Bangladesh and on pastures and market gardens in Australia. Two Californian fertiliser companies are being investigated for mixing zinc into a hazardous waste product to sell as a "zinc-based fertiliser". Similar investigations are ongoing in Missouri, New York and Texas. By attaching a fertiliser factory to the Nucor steel mill in Nebraska, Alabama-based Frit Industries avoided having to get a federal permit to use some of its toxic by-products. The black waste comes from a pollution-control device in the steel mill's chimney. It is rich in zinc, a plant nutrient. It is also rich in lead and cadmium. The dust is a federal hazardous waste unless it is turned into fertiliser. The Frit fertiliser product is sold to fertiliser dealers in the heart of US corn country and "to custom blenders throughout the Midwest", according to the Seattle Times. An Idaho organic fertiliser manufacturer, John Hatfield, is quoted in the report: "Nucor didn't want to ship their lead zinc dust to Monterrey, Mexico, at $100 a ton, and so they got Frit Industries to move in there. You say, how do I know that? Because they asked me to do it before Frit." Hatfield declined. In Camas, Washington, a highly corrosive, state-classified, dangerous waste is collected from the chimney of a paper mill on the Columbia River. Seven hundred tons of the stuff is collected a month. Workers add water to it, put it into trucks and bring it to six farms where it is spread on 425 acres of farmland. It is then called "NutriLime", a farm product registered for use in Washington and Oregon. It is turned into soils growing oats, grass, clover and other pasture for livestock. In samples of the ash tested by state regulators in 1991, four parts per million of lead were found. Later tests showed 562 parts per million. According to the Times, mill manager A.G. Elsbree said, "The popularity of NutriLime is grow- ing daily, and we look forward to serving the agricultural community." A trucker picks up toxic ash from a plant in California and has to hang a hazardous waste sign on his truck. When he crosses the border into Nevada, Oregon or Washington, he can take the sign off. The hazardous waste is now a fertiliser component. (Sources: The Ark Institute, 25 July 1997, and The Seattle Times, 3, 4 and 13 July 1997. For the full report, "Fear in the Fields", by Duff Wilson, see the Times' web page, www.seattletimes.com) set of eight microphones and loudspeakers. A microphone positioned near the source of the offending noise feeds it into the computer, which analyses the sound and broadcasts its exact electronic opposite, cancelling it out to produce silence. (Source: Daily Mail, UK, 29 July 1997) CONDITIONS IN THE WOMB INFLUENCE IQ Mens may be able to influence the intelligence of their children by alter- ing what they eat or by avoiding certain toxins during pregnancy, according to a study released by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania. Until now, it has been assumed that any contribution to a child's IQ before birth must be genetic. Instead, the researchers say that up to 20 per cent of the variation in 1Q in the population is down to the very early environmental influence of the womb. This means that the womb is prob- ably a bigger shaper of IQ than any other single environmental influence such as school or home life. (Source: The Weekly Telegraph, London, 6-12 August 1997) STEALTH BOMBER IS A 'WASHOUT"! ne of the most expensive aircraft ever built, the US Air Force's B-2 Stealth bomber, has a major problem: its paint washes off in the rain! According to a report from the US General Accounting Office, the bomber's special radar-absorbing coating material is a little too delicate. The composite materi- al quickly degrades and loses its ‘invisibili- ty' if exposed to rain, heat and humidity. The price tag of about US$2.1 billion per plane (which is five times its own weight in gold) does not include the need for special air-conditioned hangars if the plane is used in operations based outside the USA. (Sources: The Daily Telegraph, London, 21 August; New Scientist, 23 August 1997) SHELL REJECTS OIL RIGHTS? lo the shock of the environmental com- munity, the World Wildlife Fund (WWE) nominated Shell and three other oil companies for a 1997 British Columbia Minister's Environmental Award, for agreeing to give up their rights to explore for oil off BC's Queen Charlotte Islands. (Source: Earth Island Journal, Summer 1997/Winter (southern hemisphere) 1997) NEXUS <9 OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 1997