By Paula Yockel at Brownstone dot org. In recent weeks, a major pipeline erupted in Maryland spilling over 243 million gallons of sewage into the Potomac River that flows along the southern border of Washington, D.C. You couldn't have missed this news because it was reported everywhere: NPR, NBC, the New York Times, and Wall Street Journal. Even the British Guardian ran several stories, reporting that the sewage spill caused a rift between Maryland's Governor and President Trump over who bears blame. A disaster declaration was approved. But each year, as our primary means of sewage disposal, millions of tons of toxic sewage sludge, labeled as "biosolids," are spread as agricultural fertilizer across our nation's farmland, where rural Americans call home. I know this because my family lived it, and it made us very sick. We had to leave our home to save our health. The unthinkable illnesses my family suffered motivated me to seek independent facts. After all, we had authorities at every level telling us that this practice was safe, but our experience told us otherwise. What we uncovered in our testing and research—including the statistically significant increased relative risk of disease in a community where sludge is used on farmland—left us no option but to take action. I founded the nonprofit Mission503, to not only raise awareness of this practice, but to end it, and lead the way to real solutions. As Americans are aligning on concerns regarding toxic chemical exposure, including PFAS from sludge practices, it's timely to share some of our key findings. But first, let's level set on three quick things about our nation's sewage disposal practices. Number one. Sewage sludge is the solid material that remains after liquid is separated from wastewater that enters the nation's sewer plants. It's typically the consistency of thick brownie batter. While the facilities are designed to treat and discharge the liquid effluent into our natural waters, like rivers, streams, and lakes, the cleaner the liquid, the more concentrated the toxins and pathogens are in the solids. Although sludge is considered "treated" and is often digested to reduce its volume, the more than 17,000 sewer plants in the US are neither engineered for, nor mechanically capable of, safely disposing or destroying sewage solids. Number two. Consider what flows into city sewers—then imagine it concentrated. Sludge isn't just flushed toilets (though human waste is chemically and biologically hazardous); it is the condensed residual of everything entering the sewer system: industrial and manufacturing discharge, institutional and medical waste, mortuary and slaughter operation drains, residential waste, street drains, fuels, narcotics, poisons, parasites and pathogens, microplastics, toxic chemicals—including PFAS "forever chemicals"—and so much more. Number three. Yes, we have a US federal rule, 40 CFR Part 503, that promotes using municipal sewage sludge as fertilizer on agricultural land—where food is grown, beef and dairy cattle graze, among rural communities across the nation. For sludge to qualify for land application (the term for spreading sludge on farmland), the rule regulates only nine metals and a fecal indicator. All other pollutants are ignored. Even mercury, lead, and arsenic are allowed at certain levels, meaning these toxic metals can legally be present in sludge. We've utilized this practice for decades and have successfully kept it off the American people's radar. Sludge is rebranded as "biosolids," promoted as "beneficial reuse," and misleadingly described as "organic," while farmers are not informed of its contents. Medical practitioners and researchers are largely unaware of it as well, complicating diagnosis and treatment for families who suffer illness from it. That, alone, is a topic for another day. Proponents of the rule—those whose budgets generally benefit from it and are contractually bound to deploy it—often refer to sludge practices a...
