by Judi McLeod
September 9, 2004
It’s not the trash U.S. presidential hopeful John Kerry should worry about taking out--it’s sewer sludge.
Kerry is on the record with promises to immediately ban Toronto’s trash shipments into Michigan if he wins the Nov. 2 election.
"George W. Bush has let Michigan become Canada’s landfill," Kerry proclaimed in a Tuesday news release.
Toronto trucked more than one million tonnes of garbage to Michigan last year. In fact, Toronto has been dumping all of its garbage on the border state of Michigan since Jan. 1, 2003 when the Keele Valley landfill closed.
But reeking garbage has got nothing on the sewer sludge most folk don’t know is also being shipped to Michigan, courtesy of Metropolitan Toronto.
Sewer sludge is just a gussied up word for human excrement, though government bureaucrats prefer to use the terms, "biosolids" and "waste water residual".
and John Kerry should know, it stinks to high heaven in more ways than one.
For openers, the State of Michigan inherited Toronto’s sewer sludge only after farmers, who were fertilizing Ontario fields with it, got mad as hell and refused to take it anymore.
a Dec. 15, 2003 City of Toronto staff report from the Commissioner of Works and Emergency Services explains it this way: "Due to potential odour concerns…some rural municipalities where Toronto’s biosolids are applied have enacted by-laws prohibiting the spreading of biosolids in their townships."
Michigan got dumped on with Toronto’s tonnes of garbage when the city’s mammoth landfill site had to be closed.
Michigan got dumped on with tonnes of stinky sewer sludge when Toronto’s $23 million biosolids pelletizing facility burned down in an august 2003 inferno.
With nowhere to put the sludge, Toronto bureaucrats tried to pelletize it.
In the words of the Commissioner: "During periods when land application is not possible (such as wet weather or winter months) biosolids must be hauled to Michigan for landfill disposal since the City no longer has access to a biosolid facility or its own landfill facility."
Surely, Michigan residents must be thinking, the $23 million facility lost to a fire wasn’t the only one. Toronto lost the use of another biosolids storage facility in Halton Region late in 2000 due to odour complaints from the surrounding community!
The practice of dumping human waste as fertilizer on Ontario’s farmlands is largely unknown, controversial but legal. In Ontario, foods from strawberries to steak may be fertilized by human excrement.
In Toronto, trucks from Terratec Environmental Ltd. hauled sludge from the main sewage treatment plant at ashbridges Bay to farmers’ fields.
Headaches developed when the company, already beset with farmers telling them to "shove-it", could find nowhere to store its product.
On January 31, 2001, Toronto City Council approved an agreement with azurix North america, a global water company from the United States to haul biosolids to the city’s contracted site with Republic Services in Michigan.
Enron formed azurix North america in 1998. Enron formed azurix as a holding company three years before its stocks tumbled and Enron hit rock bottom. By the time scandal hit, the azurix management team was being run by a management team made up of senior Enron executives.
as Heather Stockford wrote in Toronto Free Press (now Canadafreepress.com) in July of 2002: "The mention of Enron, an american natural gas and electricity company, and its involvement with Toronto’s biosolid management should be enough to make anyone cautious."
In July 2001, azurix had been hit with eight charges issued by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment due to its inadequate treatment of sewage during the winter of 1999, and the company’s use of not properly licensed operators at one of its plants. a month later, the company was proven guilty under 19 charges and was fined a total of $181,000.
Even under its new owner, american Water Works, which purchased the company in November 2001, a malfunction sprouted on an azurix-operated facility in Haliburton County, causing an estimated 68,000 litres of raw sewage to flow into Lake Kashagawigamog.
as recently as February 2002, azurix and Terratec were facing two charges under the Environmental Protection act for applying sludge in disregard to the required setback distances, thus causing nearby residents to be affected by the odours–not to mention the enjoyment of their properties.
Kiyoshi Oka, a Senior Water Pollution Control Engineer for Toronto, claims that the City tests for disease causing pathogens "seven days a week". The Ontario MOE also claims that there is no reason to worry about any health impacts because the biosolids are properly treated before spreading. But an Ottawa study proves otherwise. The University of Ottawa found that some harmful pathogens present in human excrement can survive the treatment process and are still doing quite well in the soil a year after being applied.
In fact, there have been a number of sludge related health incidents that have occurred throughout parts of Canada and the U.S. where the sewer sludge process has been applied.
One such incident occurred on May 27, 2002, when Dr. Hukowich, Medical Officer of Health for Ontario’s Haliburton, Kawartha and Pine Ridge District, confirmed that sewage sludge spread in a nearby field in Percy Township, caused a 10-month-child to suffer adverse health effects.
The storage of biosolids has been nightmare town and nightmare village all over the land.
Tightened american laws relating to the import of hazardous materials are expected by Oct. 1. It will be interesting to see whether biosolids are defined as hazardous materials.
Meanwhile, if Kerry wants to save Michigan, it goes far beyond just taking out the trash.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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