Fear in the fields: How hazardous wastes become fertilizer, part 1

[Guest guest]

Toxic waste in the soil equals toxins in the plants, which means toxins inside

your food, which means that toxins wind up stored in you. Result: Damage, and

the old, " we don't know what causes it, but here take a pill and maybe someday

science will have an answer " comes to play an here goes some more money and the

same ol' same oh.

 

With huge amounts of junk science and spin, the politicians and indusrties tell

you that toxic sudge is good for you. Or is just good for those in power and

the ones pulling their strings.. Learn to be able to see the BS for what it is.

Frank

 

http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?s\

lug=fert & date=19970703 & query=fertilizer

 

Fear in the fields: How hazardous wastes become fertilizer, part 1

 

 

by Duff Wilson

Seattle Times staff reporter

 

 

When you're mayor of a town the size of Quincy, Wash., you hear just about

everything.

So it was only natural that Patty Martin would catch some farmers in her Central

Washington hamlet wondering aloud why their wheat yields were lousy, their corn

crops thin, their cows sickly.

Some blamed the weather. Some blamed themselves. But only after Mayor Martin led

them in weeks of investigation did they identify a possible new culprit:

fertilizer.

They don't have proof that the stuff they put on their land to feed it actually

was killing it. But they discovered something they found shocking and that they

think other American farmers and consumers ought to know:

Manufacturing industries are disposing of hazardous wastes by turning them into

fertilizer to spread around farms. And they're doing it legally.

" It's really unbelievable what's happening, but it's true, " Martin said. " They

just call dangerous waste a product, and it's no longer a dangerous waste. It's

a fertilizer. "

Across the Columbia River basin in Moxee City is visual testimony to Martin's

assertion. A dark powder from two Oregon steel mills is poured from rail cars

into the top of silos attached to Bay Zinc Co. under a federal permit to store

hazardous waste.

The powder, a toxic byproduct of the steel-making process, is taken out of the

bottom of the silos as a raw material for fertilizer.

" When it goes into our silo, it's a hazardous waste, " said Bay Zinc President

Dick Camp. " 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. "

What's happening in Washington is happening around the United States. The use of

industrial toxic waste as a fertilizer ingredient is a growing national

phenomenon, an investigation by The Seattle Times has found.

The Times found examples of wastes laden with heavy metals being recycled into

fertilizer to be spread across crop fields.

Legally.

In Gore, Okla., a uranium-processing plant is getting rid of low-level

radioactive waste by licensing it as a liquid fertilizer and spraying it over

9,000 acres of grazing land.

In Tifton County, Ga., more than 1,000 acres of peanut crops were wiped out by a

brew of hazardous waste and limestone sold to unsuspecting farmers.

And in Camas, Clark County, highly corrosive, lead-laced waste from a pulp mill

is hauled to Southwest Washington farms and spread over crops grown for

livestock consumption.

Recycling said to have benefits

 

Any material that has fertilizing qualities can be labeled and used as a

fertilizer, even if it contains dangerous chemicals and heavy metals.

The wastes come from iron, zinc and aluminum smelting, mining, cement kilns, the

burning of medical and municipal wastes, wood-product slurries and a variety of

other heavy industries.

Federal and state governments encourage the practice in the name of recycling

and, in fact, it has some benefits: Recycling waste as fertilizer saves

companies money and conserves precious space in hazardous-waste landfills. And,

mixed and handled correctly, the material can help crops grow.

" It's a situation where we are facing an overabundance of these materials in

landfills and, of course, landfills are getting full, " said Ali Kashani, who

directs fertilizer regulation in Washington state. " So they (waste producers)

are constantly looking for ways to recycle when they have beneficial materials. "

The problem is that the " beneficial materials " in industrial waste, such as

nitrogen and magnesium to help crops grow, often are accompanied by dangerous

heavy metals such as cadmium and lead.

" Nowhere in the country has a law that says if certain levels of heavy metals

are exceeded, it can't be a fertilizer, " Kashani said. " That would be nice to

have. "

Instead, officials rely on fertilizer producers to document that their products

are safe, and never check back for toxic components. There is not even a

requirement that toxics be listed on ingredient labels.

The Times also found that:

-- There is no national regulation of fertilizers in this country, unlike many

other industrialized nations. The laws in most states, including Washington, are

far from stringent. The lack of national regulation makes it virtually

impossible to measure the volume of fertilizers produced by recycling hazardous

wastes.

-- Some industries dispose of tons of toxic waste by giving it free to

fertilizer manufacturers, or even paying them to take it.

-- One major producer, Monsanto, has stopped recycling waste into fertilizer on

its own because of concerns about health and liability. For years, it sold 6,000

tons a year of ashy, black waste from its Soda Springs, Idaho, phosphorus plant

to nearby fertilizer companies.

The waste contained cadmium, a heavy metal that studies show can cause cancer,

kidney disease, neurological dysfunction, diminished fertility, immune-system

changes and birth defects at certain levels of consumption. Company scientists

are trying to determine whether the material is safe to be used as fertilizer,

even though the federal government allows it.

" What really is a concern is product liability, " said Robert Geddes, a Monsanto

official and Idaho state senator. " Is somebody going to sue Monsanto because we

allowed it to be made as a fertilizer? "

-- Among the substances found in some recycled fertilizers are cadmium, lead,

arsenic, radionuclides and dioxins, at levels some scientists say may pose a

threat to human health. Although the health effects are widely disputed, there

is undisputed evidence the substances enter plant roots.

Just as there are no conclusive data to prove a danger, there are none to prove

the safety of the practice.

In other nations, including Canada, that lack of certainty has led to strict

regulation. There, the approach is to limit toxic wastes in fertilizer until the

practice is proven safe. Here, the approach is to allow it until it's proven

unsafe.

Although experts disagree as to whether these fertilizers are a health threat,

most say further study is needed. Yet, little is under way.

Few farmers, and probably even fewer consumers, know about the practice.

" This is a definite problem, " said Richard Loeppert, a soil scientist at Texas

A & M University and author of several published papers on toxic elements in

fertilizers. " The public needs to know. "

Some remember the Alar scare

 

Patty Martin is not a popular politician in parts of Grant County these days.

Since she began raising the alarm about the use of toxic waste as fertilizer,

she has been threatened with a lawsuit by a local farmer, been verbally attacked

in town meetings and seen the City Council - led by a son-in-law of the local

manager of the Cenex fertilizer company - pressure her to shut up or quit.

Many farmers in and around Quincy, a town of 4,030, say they're doing very well,

thank you, with the fertilizer and the help and advice they've received from

Cenex Supply and Marketing, which sells expertise, financing and farm supplies

in the West and Midwest.

They call Martin a troublemaker and fear she's fomenting a scare akin to the

Alar alarm that nearly ruined Washington's apple industry in 1989.

In that case, the CBS television show " 60 Minutes " reported that a substance

sprayed on Washington apples to preserve them in packing was dangerous to

consumers. CBS later admitted it had made some mistakes in the story, and the

Washington apple growers sued the network. But the suit was dismissed, and in

the end, Alar was classified by EPA as a carcinogen and banned for all food

uses.

" We had a woman starting that one, too, and a lot of people got hurt by it, "

Bill Weber, an apple and potato farmer, said at one council meeting, bringing

nods and laughter.

" We don't see a problem, " said Greg Richardson, Quincy-based president of the

Potato Growers of Washington and a staunch defender of recycling wastes into

fertilizer.

Richardson wrote Martin a letter telling her to make " a statement of your trust

in the appropriate government agencies and their ability to deal with . . . the

waste in fertilizer issue. "

Martin is standing firm, and a dozen or so Quincy-area farmers are standing at

her side. They insist they, their families and their fields have suffered from

bad fertilizer.

State environmental, agriculture and health officials have looked at the

situation in Quincy. The environmental and agriculture officials, who encourage

recycling waste into fertilizer, say that as far as they can tell, there's no

danger to crops or people.

But some admit they wish they knew more. Kashani wants standards for heavy

metals in fertilizer. Absent that, he said, he has to apply a general standard

that recycled products cannot " pose a threat to public health or the

environment. "

Regulators in California have been studying the issue for years and still cannot

say what constitutes a safe level for lead, cadmium and arsenic in fertilizer.

Mayor Martin's husband works for a potato processor, and when she feels under

the harshest attack, he tells her she's doing the right thing.

" I just have the unfortunate distinction of having stumbled across this question

and asking questions of the regulatory agencies, " she said. " I didn't get the

answers. "

Trouble was brewed in pond

 

How Martin and her supporters stumbled upon the discovery of the recycling of

toxic waste into fertilizer begins at a man-made, concrete pond across the

street from Quincy High School. The pond, 36 feet wide, 54 feet long and 5 feet

deep, was built in 1986 and used by Cenex to rinse fertilizer from farm

equipment.

State investigators later found that the company also illegally used the pond to

dump pesticides.

Cenex closed the pond in 1990. By then, it contained about 38,000 gallons of

toxic goo, with heavy metals, suspected carcinogens, even some radioactive

materials. State investigators couldn't determine how all this toxic material

ended up there.

Cenex memos show how the company got rid of the sludge. John Williams, the

Quincy branch manager, wrote his boss to say the " product, " as he called it,

would cost $170,000 to ship and store at the Arlington, Ore., hazardous-waste

site, as required by federal law.

So Cenex decided to save money by spreading it on a rented plot of cornfield and

let nature take its course. The land would act as a natural filter for the

hazardous wastes.

Cenex struck a deal with lessee farmer Larry Schaapman. He was paid more than

$10,000 to let Cenex put the material, which the company claimed had fertilizer

value, on his 100 acres.

It killed the land.

The corn crop failed there in 1990, even though Schaapman and Cenex applied

extra water to try to wash the toxics through the soil. Hardly anything grew

there the next year, either.

The land belonged to Dennis DeYoung, whose family had farmed it since the early

1950s before he leased it to Schaapman. Since the land was poisoned, DeYoung

couldn't make his payments, and the company that financed him foreclosed on a

$100,000 debt. DeYoung also owed Cenex money for fertilizer and seed.

Soon after, Cenex bought the land from the financing company.

" They run a farmer out of business, then they get his land, " DeYoung said. " Now

isn't that something. "

DeYoung sued Cenex for damages for ruining the soil, lost in summary judgment

but won a reversal in the State Court of Appeals earlier this year. He's

preparing for a new trial.

He also managed to stir up an investigation by the federal Environmental

Protection Agency, which regulates pesticide use. In a plea bargain, Cenex and

its manager were given one year of probation for illegal disposal of a pesticide

in the " product " spread on DeYoung's land.

The company never had to explain how the heavy metals - enough cadmium,

beryllium and chromium to qualify as a Superfund site - got into the rinse pond

in town.

That's where Martin and her supporters come in.

Farmers began comparing notes

 

Tom Witte is a 53-year-old farmer with 200 acres and about 100 cows a few miles

east of Quincy. His father purchased the farm in 1956.

Witte had a disastrous year in 1991. His red spring wheat, silage corn and grain

corn all yielded about one-third the normal levels.

" You always blame yourself, you know, " Witte said. " You always think you screwed

up. But then it wasn't just the crops. Then I started having all these weird

problems with the cows. "

Six of his cows got sick and died. The veterinarian found cancer in the three

that were tested.

When Dennis DeYoung told Witte about his problems, Witte got to wondering about

the effects of fertilizer on his fields. Although he hadn't used material from

the rinse pond, he had used products from Cenex.

Witte still had the rusty, steel fertilizer tank Cenex had delivered and set up

on his property in 1991.

Witte reached in the tank and scooped about two pounds of dust, rust and residue

from the bottom. He sent the material to Brookside Farms Laboratory in Ohio,

which found levels of arsenic, beryllium, lead, titanium, chromium, copper and

mercury.

A reporter showed Max Hammond, the top Cenex scientist in the area, the test

results last fall. Hammond, since deceased, said some of the metals might have

come from dust or rust in Witte's tank, but he could not explain the beryllium

or arsenic.

Arsenic, a known carcinogen, is a highly toxic residue from mining and smelting

processes.

Mayor Martin, who had been closely tracking the rinse-pond controversy, caught

wind of Witte's and DeYoung's problems.

Martin, Witte, DeYoung and others began researching fertilizer manufacturing. In

their reading, they discovered that, as a result of landfill costs and the

stringent environmental laws of the 1970s, a lot of heavy industries were

recycling and marketing their hazardous waste as fertilizer.

In their research, they came upon an Oregon lawsuit they think provides a

critical insight to Quincy's problems.

Aluminum case was studied

 

Northwest Alloys, a subsidiary of the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa), has a

smelter in Addy, an hour's drive north from Spokane. Between 1984 and 1992, the

company recycled more than 200,000 tons of hazardous waste from the smelter

through a smaller company that sold it as a fertilizer and road de-icer.

Based on industry research that said the material was safe, state officials in

Washington, Oregon and Idaho allowed the waste to be sold as " CalMag " and

" AlMag " fertilizers and " Road Clear " de-icer.

The fertilizer was produced and marketed by L-Bar Products Inc. of Chewelah,

near Addy. With the recycling, Alcoa saved at least $17 million in disposal

costs, according to company documents, and many farmers used the products with

apparent success.

But one Oregon farmer who used it saw his red-clover crop mysteriously wilt. In

1993, he hired James Vomocil, an Oregon State University soils expert, to test

his fields and fertilizers.

Vomocil said L-Bar's sales flier was " designed to deceive " and the product was

volatile, unpredictable and unsafe.

With that ammunition, farmer Wes Behrman of Banks, Ore., won an out-of-court

settlement from L-Bar. He refused to discuss terms of the settlement; he has

told other people it was substantial.

So what did that have to do with Quincy?

Perhaps nothing. Cenex managers in Quincy and in its regional office say they

never bought anything from L-Bar Products and had never even heard of the

company, according to Cenex spokeswoman Lani Jordan.

But a 1994 fax from L-Bar owner Frank Melfi indicates otherwise. It says Cenex

had already bought the L-Bar product and was considering buying 30,000 tons that

year in " some sort of mutual marketing or venture relationship. "

Although that deal never happened, Melfi says now that he definitely sold CalMag

to Cenex.

Mayor Martin thinks some of it wound up on fields in Quincy, among a variety of

other recycled hazardous wastes.

And although Cenex denies buying recycled wastes from L-Bar, it has bought

material from Bay Zinc to add to custom fertilizer mixes, said Pete Mutschler of

Cenex. But Mutschler said the company didn't realize the Bay Zinc fertilizer

contained recycled hazardous waste.

Dennis DeYoung began to wonder if fertilizer was to blame not only for his

recent problems, but also for his land turning unproductive in the late 1980s,

the reason he decided to lease it to Schaapman in the first place. At the time,

his corn, beans and hay were going bad and he didn't know why.

And the more he and others read about what went into recycled fertilizers, the

more they began to worry about possible health effects. Martin encouraged Witte

and DeYoung to submit hair samples to a Chicago laboratory that tests for heavy

metals in human tissues.

The lab, Doctor's Data Inc., found high levels of aluminum, antimony, lead,

arsenic and cadmium in hair samples from DeYoung, Witte and Witte's children.

Joseph DiGangi, a scientist with Greenpeace in Chicago, reviewed the hair

samples. " I thought it was kind of creepy, really - all the people, really

headed for a serious health problem, if not now, then later, " he said.

And it was all perfectly legal.

" It's amazing that something like this could run across the nation and nobody

would know about it, " DeYoung said.

Martin, Witte and DeYoung felt their discovery explained the heavy metals found

in Witte's crops. They wondered if the toxic metals in the Cenex pond came from

fertilizer residues rinsed from equipment, a theory Cenex vigorously denies.

Most importantly, the mayor and farmers knew that while they might never sort

out exactly what had happened in their town, they had discovered something other

farmers and consumers deserved to know about.

" This recycling might be great in theory, but in fact it's being abused, " Martin

said. " There's no enforcement. Nobody is watching the companies. Nobody can tell

me what's really happening. Nobody knows. "

Frustration grew

 

For a man with rough hands and dirty shoes, Tom Witte writes a good letter.

" The state has no mechanism set up to prevent toxic heavy-metals contamination

of fertilizers, " he wrote then-Gov. Mike Lowry last year. " Fertilizer is only

tested for fertility elements. Nobody checks on what is in the inert

ingredients, so we have a situation tailor-made for abuse.

" People in industry think that the best way to dispose of waste is to sell it

for fertilizer and let unsuspecting farmers spread it on their land. "

Agriculture Director Jim Jesernig wrote back, agreeing there were problems and

promising to look into it further. The departments of agriculture, ecology and

health have set up a staff group that plans to issue a report later this year

saying the practice, which they have encouraged for years, is safe. State

officials say they have tested a sampling of 27 potatoes and that heavy-metal

readings were well within safe limits.

Meanwhile, Mayor Martin and Witte's sister, Nancy, a nurse, went to EPA

Administrator Carol Browner's Children's Health Conference in Washington, D.C.,

in February. Nancy Witte prodded a nervous Martin to go to the microphone and

ask a question of Browner.

Martin asked whether the EPA knew about companies making toxic wastes into

fertilizer. Browner said she didn't know anything about it but she'd look into

it. Later, an aide to Browner contacted the mayor, explained the benefits of

waste recycling and assured her there would be further study.

Frustrated with the lack of action by public officials, Martin contacted The

Times, asking the newspaper to develop this information.

Potential for danger unclear

 

So what to make of Mayor Martin and her crusaders? Are they, as Richardson of

the Potato Growers of Washington insists, unnecessarily " opening up an ugly can

of worms " ?

All that's clear is that the potential for danger is unclear. Some scientists

and public officials say the benefits of recycling waste outweigh the possible

risks.

" The farmer is coming out a little ahead, " said soils specialist Charlie

Mitchell of Alabama's Auburn University. " The person spreading it is getting his

profit. The company is using its waste instead of dumping it. So we're helping

the environment. We're creating jobs. If it's done right, it can really be a

win-win situation. "

But Ken Cook, a soils scientist who heads the nonprofit Environmental Working

Group, said no one yet knows what constitutes " doing it right. "

Mayor Martin and friends are raising good questions, Cook says.

" Let's put it this way: We're well into the use of these materials before these

questions are even asked, and that doesn't seem to me to be a good sign that

we've been very rigorous in our science on this. "

Meanwhile, Quincy farmers such as Witte, DeYoung and Duke Giraud want some

action. Giraud lost his family's onion business because of poor yields, and he

suffers from respiratory problems. He figures he unknowingly spread

recycled-waste fertilizer on his fields.

It might be too late for him, he says, but he wants government agencies to look

out for the welfare of other farmers.

" They have to start testing fertilizer for what they don't say is in there, "

Giraud says, " because they have no problem letting them add who-knows-what. "

Let us know what you think. E-mail Duff Wilson at dwil-new

 

 

 

 

What's known, and not known, about toxics, plants and soil

Resources on the World Wide Web

Heavy Metals in Fertilizers

 

 

 

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