Another Blow to the Image of Sludge

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In Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, we reported on the Environmental Protection Agency's PR campaign to rename sewage sludge as "biosolids" and use it as fertilizer. Now the Washington Post is finally reporting that there might be some problems with the practice. This story mentions complaints from people such as James Lear of Virginia, who woke up one morning last fall covered head to foot with mysterious boils that his doctor said might be connected to airborne bacteria from the treated sewage used as fertilizer on a nearby pasture. In New Hampshire, Shayne Conner, 26, died a few weeks weeks after several hundred tons of sludge were spread on a field near his home.