- DULUTH, Minn. (AP) -- Farmers
in northeast Minnesota are using a fertilizer rich in phosphorus, nitrogen
and organic matter that can boost crop yields by 80 percent. Best of all,
it's free.
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- The problem, for some, is that it's made of treated human
waste, which opponents say is environmentally unsafe and unhealthy for
animals and other people.
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- "It's disgusting to think that everything we pour
down our drains and flush down our toilets, in our homes and hospitals
and paper mills, is ending up on our local farms," said Inese Holte,
an area resident and longtime opponent. "What we're doing to our rural
neighbors is awful. The farmers will take it because they are hurting and
it's free. But we shouldn't be giving it to them at all." But proponents
say it's the ultimate in recycling.
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- "We're giving nutrients back to the land that we
took out of it," said Lauri Walters, environmental program coordinator
for the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District.
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- Using human waste as fertilizer is nothing new. Asian
cultures have done it for centuries. In Milwaukee, sludge has been treated,
dried, bagged and sold to Midwest gardeners for more than 60 years.
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- In Minnesota, all but one of the state's 250 municipal
treatment plants that produce sludge at least some of it to the land. The
only exception is Grand Rapids, which landfills all its sludge because
it's mostly paper mill waste too fibrous to spread. Jorja Dufresne, who
oversees the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's sludge-regulation program,
says about one-third of all sludge created in the state ends up on fields.
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- Since 1992, when Congress banned the dumping of treated
sludge in oceans, land application has skyrocketed past incineration and
landfilling, the other two approved options for sludge disposal.
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- The EPA promotes spreading it as fertilizer, calling
it the preferred disposal option. Incineration is less favored because
it requires the consumption of fuels that contribute to air pollution.
And burying the stuff takes up space in hard-to-permit landfills. Sludge
opponents aren't convinced the substance is safe. They point to a 2002
National Academies of Science report that found EPA regulation of sludge
is based on "outdated science."
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- Tom Richards, who owns land in Blackhoof Township in
Carlton County, says the sludge smells bad, especially when it's not turned
into the soil immediately. He believes there are too many questions about
what's in the sludge to allow continued spreading on fields.
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- "Nobody likes sewage sludge, just as nobody likes
pollution," Richards added. "It's just that some people are unjustly
profiting from it at the expense of everyone and everything else, especially
our soils and waters."
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- Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press
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