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Sat Jan 24 2009
Post a commentWhat’s the downside to clean water? Dirty sludge?
A nationwide survey of sewage treatment plants shows that the sludge they produce–the residue from cleaning up wastewater–contains a wide variety of toxic metals, pharmaceuticals, flame retardants, and other compounds, including some antibiotics in surprisingly high concentrations. That’s significant because every year more than half of the roughly 7 million metric tons of these so-called biosolids produced in the United States are applied as fertilizer to farm fields.
Whether the concentrations of these chemicals pose any health threat isn’t known, but the new data, released last week, will allow the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to begin assessing the risks. “This is a very important study,” says Rolf Halden, an environmental scientist at Arizona State University, Tempe.
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Sunday, January 25, 2009 - 21:24:57
According to this article What’s the downside to clean water? Dirty sludge? is a very important study,” says Rolf Halden, an environmental scientist at Arizona State University, Tempe.