From: biosolids-bounces@lists.casaweb.org on behalf of Greg Kester [gkester@casaweb.org] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 11:08 AM To: biosolids@lists.casaweb.org Subject: [CASA Biosolids] FW: FW: Yahoo! News Story - Sewage-basedfertilizer safety doubted - Yahoo! News Hello everyone - Some additional perspectives on the court case. It appears the Counselor for USDA did not dispute any of the farmers assertions, so they were taken as fact. I continue to work with folks on this and will keep you posted. Thanks - Greg -----Original Message----- From: Chaney, Rufus [mailto:Rufus.Chaney@ARS.USDA.GOV] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 8:59 AM To: Stevens.Rick@epamail.epa.gov; Greg Kester Cc: brobst.bob@epa.gov; Smith.James@epamail.epa.gov; FONDAHL.LAUREN@epa.gov; Bastian.Robert@epamail.epa.gov Subject: RE: FW: Yahoo! News Story - Sewage-based fertilizer safety doubted - Yahoo! News Dear Rick and Greg et al.: I will attach a message I just sent to Scott Angle, my UMD colleague who moved to be the Dean of Agriculture at UGA several years ago. We have talked about the story in the past, and I wanted him to be aware of the issues. And of the very likely poor data which is the basis of the whole claim. My message to Scott was: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---- "From: Chaney, Rufus Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 11:48 AM To: J. Scott Angle; 'jgaskin@engr.uga.edu' Cc: Brobst.Bob@epamail.epa.gov; 'Bastian.Robert@epa.gov' Subject: Biosolids in the news again Scott: I got this AP story today and thought you would want to see it. I read it carefully, and reviewed information on thallium. I believe that the farmers got bad analyses on the milk. They suggest that Charleston milk was not different from theirs. And then it would have been easy to get faulty analysis of milk samples for ultratrace elements such as Cd and Tl and Mo. Interference issues. If someone used ICP their detection limit would not have been low enough for a real sample to reach the values found in normal milk. Junk data blows up into junk story! Further, when cows are fed 109Cd, very little ends up in milk even when the animals are fed high levels of Cd. We never found meaningful levels of Cd in our sludge fed cows in the UMD-Beltsville-WSSC tests. And thallium is also hard to transfer to milk. Evidence that Cd, Tl, or Mo in the biosolids were high is only the error in reporting data by the city of Augusta. That was indeed wrong. And that error has driven the lawsuits and claims. But the study by UGA measured soil and plant levels of Cd and other elements and found only low soil levels where sludge had been repeatedly applied. They were not allowed to test the specific farms where harm was alleged. But the farms sampled were representative of the Augusta sludge use program. Thallium is less mobile in plants than Cd. So the milk story which may blow up today in the news seems to be to be simply junk data reported by the farmer. And the reporter has been trying to develop an anti-biosolids story for over a year, interviewing many parties and getting documents from lawyers trying to sue in GA and elsewhere. For example, the copy of a hand written note on the draft of the paper by UGA by Miller must have been subpoened for the suit against the scientists and given to the reporter. Regards, Rufus AP story Gaskin paper." I think that EPA and USDA should appeal the case because of the bad precedent, and the technically wrong basis for the claim. I think there is so little chance of a thallium issue in the milk that it is all garbage. I hope that Bob Brobst will confirm the repeated errors in reports for the farmers during that process. Yes, theses cases are sad. But that doesn't make it right for them to win in this court ruling. And yes, Augusta did wrong in their reporting, but the sludge program was not causing problems based on Gaskin et al. study and common sense analysis of the situation. Any decision to appeal is the lawyers decision, not ours. I think the precedent would be bad enough for EPA and biosolids that it should be challenged. Rufus -----Original Message----- From: Stevens.Rick@epamail.epa.gov [mailto:Stevens.Rick@epamail.epa.gov] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 11:47 AM To: Greg Kester Cc: brobst.bob@epa.gov; Chaney, Rufus; Smith.James@epamail.epa.gov; FONDAHL.LAUREN@EPA.GOV; Bastian.Robert@epamail.epa.gov Subject: RE: FW: Yahoo! News Story - Sewage-based fertilizer safety doubted - Yahoo! News I plan to prepare at least a desk statement on the decision. I suspect that SludgeWatch and others will do their part to spread the 'good' news. Our press office will need a desk statement from which to speak when calls come in. A fact sheet may also be needed. I don't see EPA officially urging USDA or DOJ to appeal. Bob and Bob, do you? A few well placed phone calls might be in order. Rick Stevens 202-566-1135 202-566-1139 fax stevens.rick@epa.gov "Greg Kester" To Rick Stevens/DC/USEPA/US@EPA 03/07/2008 09:34 cc AM Bob Brobst/P2/R8/USEPA/US@EPA, "'Rufus Chaney'" , James Smith/CI/USEPA/US@EPA, Lauren Fondahl/R9/USEPA/US@EPA, Robert Bastian/DC/USEPA/US@EPA Subject RE: FW: Yahoo! News Story - Sewage-based fertilizer safety doubted - Yahoo! News Thanks Rick - I did see that in the AP story and agree with it. Unfortunately, it did not appear in the story in the Madison paper. I suspect that it will be cut from many of the print versions. Do you anticipate that EPA will urge USDA and DOJ to appeal the decision? Do you think EPA would have any official position for distribution, on the decision? I sincerely hope so on both counts. I will not be surprised if Senator Boxer makes further inquiries now. A proactive response from EPA and an articulate appeal would certainly help those engaged in biosolids management, as they must now deal with local officials and the public who reads this article. Thanks again - Greg -----Original Message----- From: Stevens.Rick@epamail.epa.gov [mailto:Stevens.Rick@epamail.epa.gov] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 6:09 AM To: Greg Kester Cc: brobst.bob@epa.gov; Rufus Chaney; Smith.James@epamail.epa.gov; FONDAHL.LAUREN@EPA.GOV; Bastian.Robert@epamail.epa.gov Subject: Re: FW: Yahoo! News Story - Sewage-based fertilizer safety doubted - Yahoo! News Hi Greg, EPA' Ben Grumbles provided a response to the AP reporter, John Heilprin, as follows: "This unfortunate instance of poor recordkeeping and biosolids sampling techniques on the part of one plant reiterates the importance of our national Biosolids Program." "Benjamin H. Grumbles, EPA's Assistant Administrator for water programs, said Thursday that the judges order underscored the significance of what he called strong national standards on sludge rather than undercutting the giveaway program", said the article. Rick Stevens 202-566-1135 202-566-1139 fax stevens.rick@epa.gov "Greg Kester" To "Rufus Chaney" 03/07/2008 08:22 , Bob AM Brobst/P2/R8/USEPA/US@EPA, Robert Bastian/DC/USEPA/US@EPA, Rick Stevens/DC/USEPA/US@EPA, James Smith/CI/USEPA/US@EPA, Lauren Fondahl/R9/USEPA/US@EPA cc Subject FW: Yahoo! News Story - Sewage-based fertilizer safety doubted - Yahoo! News Hi all - This is a message I just sent to California folks. I hope you don't mind that I included some of your recent message to me Rufus on the thallium allegations. Since this appears to be in many papers today, I felt it necessary to get a message out to folks ASAP. Please let me know if EPA will issue any statement or if you have any thoughts on this. Thanks a lot. - Greg -----Original Message----- From: Greg Kester [mailto:gkester@casaweb.org] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 5:15 AM To: 'biosolids@lists.casaweb.org' Subject: FW: Yahoo! News Story - Sewage-based fertilizer safety doubted - Yahoo! News Hello everyone - You will undoubtedly see versions of this attached AP story in today's papers across the state and the nation. It appeared in the NY Times this morning as well as many other papers. I would like to put this into some context for you. This is not a new case. It is the old case that surfaced in the mid 1990's from 1980's land application of biosolids from Augusta, Georgia. Two farmers have repeatedly sued Augusta, EPA, the University of Georgia, and individuals within by alleging cattle death and soil contamination resulted from the application. They have been unsuccessful in these attempts until this recent ruling which requires USDA to pay the farmers for loss of crop production. Unfortunately, it appears the judge did not get Augusta's or EPA's side of the story and the attorney defending USDA had no biosolids knowledge or experience and did not aggressively defend the case. There are allegations of milk contamination that to my knowledge had not heretofore been raised, and I am trying to learn more about this. In speaking with USDA biosolids expert Rufus Chaney, he is very skeptical about the thallium in milk claims because it does not easily move to milk and is not well taken up by plants either. Neither of us had previously heard anything about high thallium in the Augusta biosolids. However, the bottom line remains that EPA in their investigation got it right. There is no evidence of soil contamination or a link from biosolids to cattle death. Please see the excellent summation by EPA in the attached document on pages 10 - 13. This document is the 2003 denial of the petition from the Center for Food Safety, and others, which called for a moratorium on the land application of biosolids. Please let me know if you would like the 2003 research paper referenced here co-authored by the University of Georgia and EPA and I will be glad to send it to you. While there were undoubtedly some problems with Augusta's program, especially in recordkeeping, there was no evidence to support any of these allegations. I will continue to monitor this story and am having conversations with EPA and others. I sincerely hope that USDA and DOJ will appeal this decision and get the full evidence in the record. I will update you as any more relevant information surfaces. Please let me know if you would like to discuss or if you have any other questions. Thanks - Greg -----Original Message----- From: Sullivan, Mike [mailto:MSullivan@lacsd.org] Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 3:48 PM To: Greg Kester; Diane Gilbert Jones; Bao, Matt; Sierra, Natalie; Bingman, Deirdre; Baroldi, Layne; Ed McCormick Subject: FW: Yahoo! News Story - Sewage-based fertilizer safety doubted - Yahoo! News Is this the AP story we have been waiting for since last summer? -----Original Message----- From: beck@lbbslaw.com [mailto:beck@lbbslaw.com] Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 2:32 PM To: hyde@lbbslaw.com; shipman@lbbslaw.com; marsh@lbbslaw.com; hervey@lbbslaw.com; beverlin@lbbslaw.com Cc: beck@lbbslaw.com Subject: Yahoo! News Story - Sewage-based fertilizer safety doubted - Yahoo! News (beck@lbbslaw.com) has sent you a news article. (Email address has not been verified.) ------------------------------------------------------------ Personal message: Just saw this on the Yahoo news wire. Sewage-based fertilizer safety doubted - Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080306/ap_on_re_us/sludge_poisoned_land ============================================================ Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/ (See attached file: 2003-12-24 EPA Denial of Petition to Ban Land Application.pdf) _______________________________________________ Biosolids mailing list Biosolids@lists.casaweb.org http://lists.casaweb.org/mailman/listinfo/biosolids