KNOW WHERE YOUR FOOD COMES FROM!

Do you know where the food you eat and milk you drink comes from?

Sewage-based fertilizer safety doubted
By JOHN HEILPRIN and KEVIN S. VINEYS, Associated Press Writers 18 minutes ago
AUGUSTA, Ga. - It was a farm idea with a big payoff and supposedly no downside: ridding lakes and rivers of raw sewage and industrial pollution by converting it all into a free, nutrient-rich fertilizer. Then last week, a federal judge ordered the Agriculture Department to compensate a farmer whose land was poisoned by sludge from the waste treatment plant here. His cows had died by the hundreds. . . .

The program is still in effect.

Alaimo ordered the government to compensate dairy farmer Andy McElmurray because 1,730 acres he wanted to plant in corn and cotton to feed his herd was poisoned. The sludge contained levels of arsenic, toxic heavy metals and PCBs two to 2,500 times federal health standards.

Also, data endorsed by Agriculture and EPA officials about toxic heavy metals found in the free sludge provided by Augusta's sewage treatment plant was "unreliable, incomplete, and in some cases, fudged," Alaimo wrote. . . .

Alaimo, citing data from an environmental engineer hired by McElmurray, found that the Augusta plant was sending out hundreds of truckloads of sludge daily with dangerously high levels of cadmium, molybdenum and chlordane. . . .

State and EPA officials followed up by testing Boyce's milk, but he said they wouldn't share all their results with him or McElmurray. There is no evidence that those officials took any further action. Boyce said he decided finally to reveal the milk contamination to the AP to illuminate a broader issue.

"Milorganite - AMERICA'S #1 NATURAL ORGANIC FERTILIZER"

This stuff has been marketed for years. It comes directly from Milwaukee's sewer treatment system. This is full of all sorts of municipal waste products yet they call it "organic." Anyone who would use this on their vegetable garden is asking for cancer or heavy metal poisoning.

KNOW WHERE YOUR FOOD COMES FROM.

BUY LOCALLY PRODUCED FOOD!

ASK QUESTIONS AT YOUR LOCAL MARKET WHEN THEY CLAIM TO HAVE "ORGANIC" PRODUCTS.