Letter to the Editor: Legislators should ban the use of biosolids

Zanesville Times Recorder
Sat, December 11, 2021

Biosolids are the filth left over after water is separated from the sludge in city sewers so the water can be returned to our waterways free of pollutants. If the water is clean, what happened to all the pollutants? Did they magically disappear? No. They remain in sludge transported and sprayed on a farm field near you.

Consider what goes down the drain. Household cleaners, pesticides, industrial chemicals and waste, medical waste, petroleum products, human pathogens and parasites, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, illegal drugs and a cocktail of the PFAS forever chemicals.

The EPA has reported more than 400 identified pollutants in this septic sludge of which 61 are to be found on lists of hazardous toxins. They are linked to a wide range of health problems including cancer, hormone imbalance, diminished immune response, lung, liver and kidney ailments, developmental and growth problems, and a litany of other ills.

Most people have never heard of biosolids and those that have are told these are a green solution to waste management and a benefit to farmers as they are an inexpensive fertilizer they can use to improve the soil. But, that is only a fairytale, a deception based on wishful thinking. There is no free lunch.

That which was too dangerous and harmful to let flow into Ohio rivers is stored in open lagoons in unfortunate rural areas, then used as fertilizer to grow the crops we eat and fed to livestock. The toxins, hidden within the belly of the biosolids Trojan horse, are applied directly to the soil where it is absorbed into crops, leaches into groundwater and runs off right back into Ohio waterways. The toxins are showing up in grain, meat and milk. We are slowly poisoning ourselves and the practice must stop. There are other ways to dispose of wastewater sludge.

Ohio legislators must ban the use of this “beneficial nutrient” until the full impact of the health effects can be determined. Public consumption is not the science experiment we need to determine the hazard this practice poses to the public.

John Trimmer, Mount Perry