Updates:

Update from reporter Duff Wilson

No Regulations on Fertilizer Ingredients 

"It's really unbelievable what's happening, but it's true," Patty Martin (mayor of Quincy, WA, a small farming community) said. "They just call dangerous waste a product, and it's no longer a dangerous waste. It's a fertilizer." 

Incredibly, this is possible because the U.S., unlike Canada and European countries, has a "hands off" policy as to what can constitute "fertilizer". There are actually state programs to match up "recyclers" of toxic waste with fertilizer companies and farmers. Factories are building fertilizer plants close to the factory’s emissions control systems, to increase convenience and profitability. The resulting fertilizer needs no labeling as to the dangerous ingredients it contains. Industry representatives would like the public to believe that they are civic-minded (and smart and wise) enough to police themselves, but horror stories described in the Seattle Times article tell a different story. 

Kerr-McGee Bags Monsanto's Waste 

Sad to say, all this is not a very recent development. For example, Monsanto Corp., makers of pesticides, after six years of selling the toxic waste from its Soda Springs, Idaho factory as a fertilizer component, is the first company so far to STOP, in 1994, because of fear of possible liability. They are still selling some waste to Kerr-McGee (remember "Silkwood"?) who have taken upon themselves the process of turning it into fertilizer. A Monsanto rep stated that, in effect, Kerr-McGee is being paid to take on the risk of liability ("Kerr-McGee is a pretty big company. If they have a (liability) problem, they'll probably face their problem without dragging Monsanto into it"). 

Farms Destroyed 

The industries that are benefiting financially from this are still claiming that there is not any known risk in the use of toxic waste in fertilizer. However, the reason this story broke was that farmers’ land has been destroyed, cows have died of cancer, and the health of the farmers themselves has been damaged. After figuring out that it coincided with the application of these fertilizers, some farmers have been begun to protest the devastation of their lives. 

Problem Getting Worse 

Although a big corporation like Monsanto has seen the liability at the end of the tunnel, this phenomenon is not about to go away. It is increasing. Soil scientists report that waste brokers from metal-, cement-, paper- and wood-products companies call constantly, trying to get matched up with farmers who will accept their waste products so that they will not have to pay to dispose of them. 

Nor is it just currently produced toxics that are being cycled into fertilizer. Toxic waste from old dump sites is also making its way unregulated into fertilizer. And at one of the sites on the EPA’s Superfund list, Lowry Landfill near Denver, there is a plan to send liquid waste from the site through sewage treatment and apply it to government-owned wheat farms. The EPA is considering the novel disposal plan in a pending ruling that may set a precedent for new ways to clean up Superfund sites. (This came to light only because a former member of the National Toxics Campaign was appointed as a labor advocate, and disclosed what she discovered.) The official EPA fact sheet on the landfill omits the fact that the waste is radioactive (see "Radioactive Sludge" by Joel Bleifuss - "In These Times", April 28, 1997). 

Look it up on the Web 

There is a lot more to this story than there is room for here. You can look up the major July 3rd article on the Internet at: http://www.seattletimes.com/todaysnews/browse/html97/fert_070397.html, which will lead you to several other related stories. Congratulations to the Seattle Times and reporter Duff Wilson for breaking this story in the mainstream press. (There are also follow-up articles that can be found by searching the Seattle Times site for "toxic fertilizer".) 

Long-term Effects 

In rebuttal to what they are calling a "scare story", fertilizer industry reps seem willing to admit that mistakes were made (by "scofflaws"), but seem to define mistakes as the instances in which crops or livestock were destroyed or obviously damaged. They do not seem to acknowledge that (1) poisons put into the soil will become part of the plants or (2) eating such plants will have harmful effects, some of them insidious and long-term. Apparently they would like to deny the following: Toxic heavy metals build up in the soil, they do not go away. Radioactivity does not go away. Pesticide residues have harmful effects. Some plants take up more or less of certain chemicals from the ground than others. When the plants are eaten by animals, the toxins build up and multiply in their tissues. It’s the animals at the top of the food chain (such as predatory animals and meat and dairy-eating humans) that receive the heaviest doses of toxins. 

It is hard to tell whether the lack of follow-up coverage by other publications is a result of skepticism or fear of the new "Food Slander" laws (in 13 states), which warn that anyone saying bad things about agribusiness is likely to be sued by same (e.g., Oprah Winfrey is being sued by Texas cattle business for her show about mad-cow disease). 

As an onion farmer who lost his business and began suffering from respiratory disease after using recycled wastes on his farm said, "They have to start testing fertilizer for what they don't say is in there, because they have no problem letting them add who-knows-what." 

Who Do You Trust? 

In conclusion, the Seattle Times coverage apparently did have an effect, because on August 7th regulators from all over the US convened to discuss the labeling of fertilizers. A panel of regulators and fertilizer executives was appointed to come up with a policy on labeling, and it was announced that it would be proposed in six weeks. One thing that is not known is whether there will be actual testing (which would be difficult and expensive, especially since the toxic "products" are variable in nature) or whether we will have to continue to trust that industries have our best interests at heart. 

Updates (recent at bottom):

October '97 - online article from Hagens & Berman (go to "Class Actions", then Current Class Actions", then "Quincey Fertilizer") re class action lawsuit against chemical companies for poisoning fields!

12/98 - What to do: by Claire Cummings (from her website at http://www.ccummings.org -- in the KPFA Food and Farming Forum section):

	The regulatory framework that is supposed to protect us has loopholes that allow this practice and it urgently needs to be repaired. We need to study the problem and have public reports on it, set up a system of notification and labels, and, as soon as possible stop the practice. Californian's who want to follow the issue should contact the State Department of Food and Agriculture. Ask about what is being done. Contact the office of State Senator Byron Sher (D-PaloAlto) who has courageously taken on the fertilizer industry and support his legislative efforts to restrict this practice. His office said that almost 38 million pounds of hazardous waste laden with heavy metals and dioxin was shipped to farms and fertilizer manufacturers in California between 1990 and 1995. For more information, contact Kevin Walsh at Senator Sher's office (916.445.6747). Kevin has been very helpful to Food and Farming Forum in preparing the two shows we did on this subject. There are also lawsuits being brought to stop this practice by environmental attorney Bill Verrick at the Klamath Environmental law Center (707.443.4000). Finally, concerned consumers should contact fertilizer companies directly. Demand to know all the ingredients, not just the "beneficial" ones they tell you about. Ask them to test for and label all heavy metals and other toxic ingredients and to stop the practice of using hazardous waste, mining tailings, heavy metals like lead, low level nuclear waste, incinerator ash and sources of dioxin in their products.

11/99 - No things have not been taken care of. Instead, it looks as if California is planning new regulations to officially legalize the use of wastes from steel mills, etc., contaminated with persistent toxics, to be added to fertilizers and sold unlabeled for spreading across America's (and elsewhere's) farmland.

At least it made the Wired.com news: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,32741,00.html