Filed under: big pharma, biochemical warfare, biological warfare, Chemical Warfare, city water, corruption, darwinists, deception, depopulation, desalination, Dictatorship, drinking water, Empire, environmental disaster, EPA, Eugenics, EWG, Fascism, fda, fluoride, Genocide, government crimes, government regulation, health and environment, human waste, malthusian, malthusian catastrophe, medical industrial complex, Mercury, methanphetamines, Nazi, New York, pharmaceuticals, Population Control, reverse osmosis, scandal, softkill, tap water, toxic earth, toxic waste, toxicity, water contamination, water safety, water supply, White House | Tags: contaminated environment, drugs, drugs in drinking water, environmental working group, estrogen in drinking water, lowering IQ, pharmaceutical drugs, public health, public water, rozac, toxic environment
Drugs in Drinking Water Killing Our Brains
Pharmaceuticals, Personal Care Products Found in New York City Water Supply
Natural News
December 31, 2009
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has issued support for a proposed law that would require the Department of Environmental Protection in New York City to test the city’s drinking water supply for personal care product and pharmaceutical residue. Citing numerous studies that have found measurable levels of such contaminants in water supplies around the nation, EWG is encouraging support for measures that would investigate and report contaminant levels to the public.
Reports have found that the nation’s water supplies contain various antibiotics, phytoestrogens and estrogenic steroids, and pharmaceutical and genotoxic drugs. New York City’s water supply is no exception. Since these contaminants have the potential to inflict widespread reproductive harm, neuro-degeneration, endocrine disruption, and cell destruction in humans, EWG is urging that New York City monitor contaminant levels and issue annual water quality reports that outline the results. Since most of these contaminants are currently unregulated, they are typically not disclosed in existing water quality reports.
Wastewater treatment facilities are capable of removing most contaminants from water, however a small percentage of fragments make their way back into the water supply. When combined with thousands of other fragments, the aggregate mass of contaminant particles can pose serious health risks. The extent to which such contamination causes harm has yet to be fully understood and observed.
As it currently stands, pharmaceutical drugs are not regulated in tap water. Drinking water is usually not tested for them and, when it is, the results are usually withheld from the public. Both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have failed to set any guidelines for pharmaceutical content in water. Thus any level of pharmaceuticals in water is considered to be legal.
Perhaps the most important call from EWG is for improvements in wastewater treatment facility technology. Current methods work for certain microorganisms and compounds but fail to adequately filter pharmaceutical drugs and other synthetic compounds from water. Ultraviolet treatment, activated carbon treatment, and ozonation are some of EWG’s suggestions for updating filter technology.
The goal of EWG is to promote water pollution reduction strategies that include raising public awareness about the issue, gathering and disseminating regular water quality data, and working to implement mitigation strategies both in the short and long terms.
Installing a home reverse osmosis system is a great way to ensure that one’s family is receiving clean water. Reverse osmosis is highly effective at purifying water, removing virtually every known particle and contaminant. It also removes chlorine, fluoride, and other toxic substances added to many municipal water supplies that would otherwise pass through most other water filtration systems.
Filed under: big oil, BP, catastrophic event, corruption, coverup, environmental disaster, eugenics, extinction, genocide, gulf of mexico, gulf oil, health and environment, media blackout, media coverup, mexico gulf, obama, obama deception, ocean, oil, oil spill, toxic earth, toxic environment | Tags: chemical dispersants, Deepwater Horizon
All Marine Life in the Gulf Could Go Extinct
Mike Adams
Natural News
May 17, 2010
Over a week ago, I published an article here on NaturalNews questioning the media spin on the massive oil spill in the Gulf. That story, entitled Is Gulf oil rig disaster far worse than we’re being told? (http://www.naturalnews.com/028749_G…), stated the following:
“It’s hard to say exactly what’s going on in the Gulf right now, especially because there are so many conflicting reports and unanswered questions. But one thing’s for sure: if the situation is actually much worse than we’re being led to believe, there could be worldwide catastrophic consequences. If it’s true that millions upon millions of gallons of crude oil are flooding the Gulf with no end in sight, the massive oil slicks being created could make their way into the Gulf Stream currents, which would carry them not only up the East Coast but around the world where they could absolutely destroy the global fishing industries.”
Now, barely one week later, it turns out that the oil slick is FAR worse than what we were being told.
USA Today now reports:
Researchers warned Sunday that miles-long underwater plumes of oil from the spill could poison and suffocate sea life across the food chain, with damage that could endure for a decade or more. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation…)
That same article also explained:
“Researchers have found more underwater plumes of oil than they can count from the blown-out well, said Samantha Joye, a professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia. She said careful measurements taken of one plume showed it stretching for 10 miles, with a 3-mile width.”
The Christian Science Monitor also reports now that as much as 3.4 million gallons of oil may be leaking into the Gulf every day!
“The oil that can be seen from the surface is apparently just a fraction of the oil that has spilled into the Gulf of Mexico since April 20, according to an assessment the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology. Significant amounts of oil are spreading at various levels throughout the water column… Scientists looking at video of the leak, suggest that as many as 3.4 million gallons of oil could be leaking into the Gulf every day – 16 times more than the current 210,000-gallon-a-day estimate, according to the Times.” (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0…)
The New York Times also chimed in on the topic over the weekend with some absolutely shocking (and disturbing) revelations:
“Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/u…)
Scientists studying video of the gushing oil well have tentatively calculated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day. The latter figure would be 3.4 million gallons a day. But the government, working from satellite images of the ocean surface, has calculated a flow rate of only 5,000 barrels a day.”
In other words, while the government has been telling us the leak is only 5,000 barrels a day, the true volume could be more like 80,000 barrels a day.
Wiping out the Gulf
It hardly needs to be stated that 80,000 barrels of oil a day leaking into the Gulf of Mexico could destroy virtually all marine life in the region.
Oxygen levels have already fallen by 30 percent in waters near the oil. When water loses its oxygen content, it quickly becomes a so-called “dead zone” because marine species simply can’t live there anymore. (Fish and other aquatic creatures need oxygen to live, obviously.)
With this volcano of oil still erupting through the ocean floor, we could be witnessing the mass-murder of virtually all marine life in the Gulf of Mexico.
And yet we’re faced with a virtual blackout of truly accurate news on the event. Both the oil industry and the Obama administration are desperately trying to limit the videos, photos and stories about the spill, spinning everything to make it seem like it’s not really much of a problem at all.
It’s much like the media coverage of the War in Iraq, where all video footage had to be vetted by the Pentagon before being released to the public. Remember the uproar over the leaked photos of coffins draped in American flags? That’s what the Obama administration no doubt hopes to avoid by suppressing photos of dead dolphins and sea birds in the Gulf of Mexico.
The truth, as usual, is being suppressed. It’s just too ugly for the public to see.
Of course, the truth has always been suppressed in the oil industry. Even the inspections on this particular oil rig were, well, rigged. It turns out the rig wasn’t even inspected on schedule (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100516…).
It also turns out that the Obama administration actually gave the Deepwater Horizon an award for its history of safety! That was before the whole thing literally blew up in their faces.
Corruption in Washington leads to catastrophe
The oil industry, you see, is just like every other industry that’s regulated by the federal government: It has a cozy relationship with regulators.
It’s the same story with Big Pharma and the FDA, or the meat industry and the USDA. Wall Street and the SEC. Every industry that’s regulated eventually turns the tables on its regulators and ends up rewriting the rules for its own benefit.
The oil industry has been able to get away with so many exemptions and loopholes that the regulatory environment is now lenient at best. The Deepwater Horizon, for example, was given all sorts of exemptions to engage in risky drilling operations without following proper safety procedures. And who granted it these exemptions? The U.S. federal government, of course!
So now the U.S. government is just as guilty as the oil industry in this mass-murder of life in the Gulf of Mexico. It is the government that allowed the series of events that led to catastrophe in the first place. And now, this catastrophe could lead to a near-total wipeout of marine life throughout the Gulf (and possibly beyond).
In a worst-case scenario, this could destroy some percentage of life in oceans all around the world. It could be the one final wound to Mother Earth who bleeds her black blood into the oceans for ten thousand years, destroying life as we know it on this planet.
All for profit, of course. Let nothing stand in the way of another billion dollars in oil company profits! (Regulators? Bah!)
Collusion between government and industry always leads to disaster
I hope BP can find a way to suction some of that oil out of the ocean. If they can manage such a solution, they should then turn around and dump the entire slick across the landscape of Washington D.C. to coat all the bureaucrats in the black slimy shame they no doubt deserve. This isn’t about some random accident, you see: It’s about a failure of federal regulators to enforce safe drilling practices.
The fishing industries in and around the Gulf of Mexico could be devastated for decades. The diversity of life in the marine ecosystems there may soon find itself on the verge of collapse. And still there is no real solution for stopping the volcano of oil that continues to gush out of this gaping wound in the Earth herself.
I can only wonder what kind of hare-brained ideas these oil men are coming up with now to stop the flow. A nuke bomb expert has reportedly been sent to the area by the Obama administration as part of some sort of “dream team” of super smart people to find a solution.
But it begs the question: If we were so smart, why are we still running the world on fossil fuels in the first place? There’s enough sunlight energy striking the deserts of Arizona to power the entire nation indefinitely! Free energy technology continues to be suppressed in large part by oil company interests (and the arrogant scientific community), and renewable energy technology has received virtually no government support whatsoever.
If we were really smart, we wouldn’t be drilling holes in the ocean floor and hoping we can cope with whatever comes gushing out. We’d be installing Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) installations across the deserts of America or building more wind power generators. We’ve be investing in electric cars and alternative fuels rather than burning up our future with fossil fuels.
The smartest thing we could do right now — after capping the volcano of oil, of course — would be to make a commitment to end our world’s dependence on fossils fuels forever. But that goes against the financial interests of the oil companies who all want to keep us trapped in their system of fossil fuel dependence no matter what the cost to the environment.
And so we plug along, handcuffed to an outdated fuel source and still running our ridiculously historical internal combustion engines which should have been phased out decades ago and replaced with electric motors.
Humans are slow learners, it turns out. Our modern civilization isn’t really that “modern,” and it only seems to learn from catastrophe rather than intelligent planning.
The question remains: How much more damage can our planet handle from Man’s arrogant pollution? At what point does all the chemical contamination, fertilizer runoff, carbon emissions and runaway oil pollution of the ocean add up to a global extinction event?
We’re playing a global game of Russian Roulette right now with the future of human civilization… and the oil companies just can’t stop pulling the trigger. There’s little question where we’re all going to end up if we don’t change our ways and find a cleaner way to power our infantile civilization.
BP is using chemical dispersants to keep oil in the depths of the ocean
From MSNBC:
Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.
“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”
Dr. Joye said the oxygen had already dropped 30 percent near some of the plumes in the month that the broken oil well had been flowing. “If you keep those kinds of rates up, you could draw the oxygen down to very low levels that are dangerous to animals in a couple of months,” she said Saturday. “That is alarming.”
The plumes were discovered by scientists from several universities working aboard the research vessel Pelican, which sailed from Cocodrie, La., on May 3 and appears to be the first scientific expedition to gather extensive samples and information about the disaster in the gulf.
Scientists studying video of the gushing oil well have tentatively calculated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day. But the government, working from satellite images of the ocean surface, has calculated a flow rate of only 5,000 barrels a day.
From New York Times:
BP PLC continues to stockpile and deploy oil-dispersing chemicals manufactured by a company with which it shares close ties, even though other U.S. EPA-approved alternatives have been shown to be far less toxic and, in some cases, nearly twice as effective.
After the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and a deepwater well began gushing crude in the Gulf of Mexico three weeks ago, BP quickly marshaled a third of the world’s available supply of dispersants, chemicals that break surface oil slicks into microscopic droplets that can sink into the sea.
But the benefits of keeping some oil out of beaches and wetlands carry uncertain costs. Scientists warn that the dispersed oil, as well as the dispersants themselves, might cause long-term harm to marine life.
So far, BP has told federal agencies that it has applied more than 400,000 gallons of a dispersant sold under the trade name Corexit and manufactured by Nalco Co., whose current leadership includes executives from BP and Exxon. And another 805,000 gallons of Corexit are on order, the company said, with the possibility that hundreds of thousands of more gallons may be needed if the well continues spewing oil for weeks or months.
But according to EPA data, Corexit ranks far above dispersants made by competitors in toxicity and far below them in effectiveness in handling southern Louisiana crude.
Filed under: bottled water, environmental disaster, EPA, Eugenics, health and environment, ocean, plastic, toxic earth, toxic environment, toxicity | Tags: great pacific garbage patch
Wheres greenpeace now? Thats right, trying to pass carbon taxes.
Plastic Trash Found in Whale’s Stomach
‘Toxic stew’ of chemicals causing male fish to carry eggs in testes
Filed under: bisphenol A, bottled water, BPA, cancer, environmental disaster, EPA, Eugenics, fda, food contamination, food safety, health and environment, ocean, phthalates, plastic, softkill, toxic earth, toxic environment, toxicity
BPA hormone disruptor contaminates Earth’s oceans
Natural News
April 13, 2010
Earlier this year, research linked bisphenol A (BPA), a common component of plastics and a powerful hormone disrupter, to heart disease (http://www.naturalnews.com/027974_b…). Now, in the March issue of the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, researchers have reported yet another newly discovered danger posed by BPA. Hugh S. Taylor, M.D., professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at Yale University, and his research team have found for the first time that BPA exposure during pregnancy can cause abnormalities in the uterus of offspring and permanent alterations in DNA.
But at least you can avoid plastics and therefore avoid exposure to the BPA, right? Unfortunately, another group of scientists has just announced that’s getting harder and harder to do. Bottom line: there is now solid evidence that Earth’s oceans have been contaminated on a global scale with BPA.
Katsuhiko Saido, Ph.D., of Nihon University in Chiba, Japan, and his colleagues announced their startling and worrisome findings at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society held in San Francisco recently. He stated that the massive BPA contamination of oceans resulted from hard plastic trash thrown in the seas as well as from another surprising source — the epoxy plastic paints used to seal the hulls of ships.
“This new finding clearly demonstrates the instability of epoxy, and shows that BPA emissions from epoxy do reach the ocean. Recent studies have shown that mollusks, crustaceans and amphibians could be affected by BPA, even in low concentrations,” Dr. Saido said in a statement to the media.
The scientists noted that light, white-foamed plastic decomposed rapidly at temperatures commonly found in the oceans, releasing the endocrine disruptor BPA. It isn’t just soft plastics that leach BPA, either.
“We were quite surprised to find that polycarbonate plastic biodegrades in the environment,” Dr. Saido explained. “Polycarbonates are very hard plastics, so hard they are used to make screwdriver handles, shatter-proof eyeglass lenses, and other very durable products. This finding challenges the wide public belief that hard plastics remain unchanged in the environment for decades or centuries. Biodegradation, of course, releases BPA to the environment.”
Dr. Saido’s research team analyzed sand and seawater from over 200 sites in 20 countries, including areas in Southeast Asia and North America. Every site tested contained what Dr. Saido labeled as “significant” amounts of BPA, ranging from 0.01 parts per million (ppm) to 50 ppm.
Dr. Saido pointed out that littering currently results in about 150,000 tons of plastic debris washing up on the shores of Japan alone each year. In addition, a huge area of plastic waste known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is about two times the size of Texas, now contaminates the area between California and Hawaii. “Marine debris plastic in the ocean will certainly constitute a new global ocean contamination for long into the future,” Dr. Saido predicted in the press statement.
In yet more BPA news, Rolf Halden, associate professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering at Arizona State University and assistant director of Environmental Biotechnology at the Biodesign Institute, has just published a sobering research article on the hazards of chemical-loaded plastics. His findings, which are included in the latest issue of the Annual Review of Public Health, provide more evidence that plastics in garbage dumps, landfills and the world’s oceans are an ever-increasing toxic problem.
In fact, Dr. Halden concluded in his paper that plastics and their additives such as BPA aren’t only around us; they are inside virtually every human. The chemicals show up in blood and urine tests because they are ingested with the food we eat, the water we drink and from other environmental exposures.
“We’re doomed to live with yesterday’s plastic pollution and we are exacerbating the situation with each day of unchanged behavior,” Dr. Harden said in a press statement. “We are at a critical juncture and cannot continue under the modus that has been established. If we’re smart, we’ll look for replacement materials, so that we don’t have this mismatch — good for a minute and contaminating for 10,000 years.”
New study confirms bisphenol A found in plastic is linked to heart disease
Filed under: cancer, Chemical Warfare, Congress, deception, Empire, environmental disaster, EPA, Eugenics, GAO, Genocide, government crimes, government regulation, health and environment, infanticide, softkill, toxic earth, toxicity | Tags: health alert, toxic furnature
17,000 toxic chemicals kept secret from consumers
Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post
January 4, 2010
Of the 84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States — from flame retardants in furniture to household cleaners — nearly 20 percent are secret, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, their names and physical properties guarded from consumers and virtually all public officials under a little-known federal provision.
The policy was designed 33 years ago to protect trade secrets in a highly competitive industry. But critics — including the Obama administration — say the secrecy has grown out of control, making it impossible for regulators to control potential dangers or for consumers to know which toxic substances they might be exposed to.
At a time of increasing public demand for more information about chemical exposure, pressure is building on lawmakers to make it more difficult for manufacturers to cloak their products in secrecy. Congress is set to rewrite chemical regulations this year for the first time in a generation.
Under the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, manufacturers must report to the federal government new chemicals they intend to market. But the law exempts from public disclosure any information that could harm their bottom line.
Government officials, scientists and environmental groups say that manufacturers have exploited weaknesses in the law to claim secrecy for an ever-increasing number of chemicals. In the past several years, 95 percent of the notices for new chemicals sent to the government requested some secrecy, according to the Government Accountability Office. About 700 chemicals are introduced annually.
Some companies have successfully argued that the federal government should not only keep the names of their chemicals secret but also hide from public view the identities and addresses of the manufacturers.
“Even acknowledging what chemical is used or what is made at what facility could convey important information to competitors, and they can start to put the pieces together,” said Mike Walls, vice president of the American Chemistry Council.
Although a number of the roughly 17,000 secret chemicals may be harmless, manufacturers have reported in mandatory notices to the government that many pose a “substantial risk” to public health or the environment. In March, for example, more than half of the 65 “substantial risk” reports filed with the Environmental Protection Agency involved secret chemicals.
“You have thousands of chemicals that potentially present risks to health and the environment,” said Richard Wiles, senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization that documented the extent of the secret chemicals through public-records requests from the EPA. “It’s impossible to run an effective regulatory program when so many of these chemicals are secret.”
Of the secret chemicals, 151 are made in quantities of more than 1 million tons a year and 10 are used specifically in children’s products, according to the EPA.
The identities of the chemicals are known to a handful of EPA employees who are legally barred from sharing that information with other federal officials, state health and environmental regulators, foreign governments, emergency responders and the public.
Last year, a Colorado nurse fell seriously ill after treating a worker involved at a chemical spill at a gas-drilling site. The man, who later recovered, appeared at a Durango hospital complaining of dizziness and nausea. His work boots were damp; he reeked of chemicals, the nurse said.
Two days later, the nurse, Cathy Behr, was fighting for her life. Her liver was failing and her lungs were filling with fluid. Behr said her doctors diagnosed chemical poisoning and called the manufacturer, Weatherford International, to find out what she might have been exposed to.
Weatherford provided safety information, including hazards, for the chemical, known as ZetaFlow. But because ZetaFlow has confidential status, the information did not include all of its ingredients.
Mark Stanley, group vice president for Weatherford’s pumping and chemical services, said in a statement that the company made public all the information legally required.
“It is always in our company’s best interest to provide information to the best of our ability,” he said.
Behr said the full ingredient list should be released. “I’d really like to know what went wrong,” said Behr, 57, who recovered but said she still has respiratory problems. “As citizens in a democracy, we ought to know what’s happening around us.”
The White House and environmental groups want Congress to force manufacturers to prove that a substance should be kept confidential. They also want federal officials to be able to share confidential information with state regulators and health officials, who carry out much of the EPA’s work across the country.
Walls, of the American Chemistry Council, says manufacturers agree that federal officials should be able to share information with state regulators. Industry is also willing to discuss shifting the burden of proof for secrecy claims to the chemical makers, he said. The EPA must allow a claim unless it can prove within 90 days that disclosure would not harm business.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration is trying to reduce secrecy.
A week after he arrived at the agency in July, Steve Owens, assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, ended confidentiality protection for 530 chemicals. In those cases, manufacturers had claimed secrecy for chemicals they had promoted by name on their Web sites or detailed in trade journals.
“People who were submitting information to the EPA saw that you can claim that virtually anything is confidential and get away with it,” Owens said.
The handful of EPA officials privy to the identity of the chemicals do not have other information that could help them assess the risk, said Lynn Goldman, a former EPA official and a pediatrician and epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“Maybe they don’t know there’s been a water quality problem in New Jersey where the plant is located, or that the workers in the plant have had health problems,” she said. “It just makes sense that the more people who are looking at it, they’re better able to put one and one together and recognize problems.”
Independent researchers, who often provide data to policymakers and regulators, also have been unable to study the secret chemicals.
Duke University chemist Heather Stapleton, who researches flame retardants, tried for months to identify a substance she had found in dust samples taken from homes in Boston.
Then, while attending a scientific conference, she happened to see the structure of a chemical she recognized as her mystery compound.
The substance is a chemical in “Firemaster 550,” a product made by Chemtura Corp. for use in furniture and other products as a substitute for a flame retardant the company had quit making in 2004 because of health concerns.
Stapleton found that Firemaster 550 contains an ingredient similar in structure to a chemical — Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, or DEHP — that Congress banned last year from children’s products because it has been linked to reproductive problems and other health effects.
Chemtura, which claimed confidentiality for Firemaster 550, supplied the EPA with standard toxicity studies. The EPA has asked for additional data, which it is studying.
“My concern is we’re using chemicals and we have no idea what the long-term effects might be or whether or not they’re harmful,” said Susan Klosterhaus, an environmental scientist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute who has published a journal article on the substance with Stapleton.
Chemtura officials said in a written statement that even though Firemaster 550 contains an ingredient structurally similar to DEHP does not mean it poses similar health risks.
They said the company strongly supports keeping sensitive business information out of public view. “This is essential for ensuring the long-term competitiveness of U.S. industry,” the officials said in the statement.
Filed under: 2-party system, agriculture, arsenic, biochemical warfare, biological warfare, Chemical Warfare, coal, corruption, darwinists, deception, Dictatorship, DoA, Empire, environmental disaster, EPA, Eugenics, food safety, health and environment, Human Experiments, human waste, left right paradigm, malthusian, malthusian catastrophe, Mercury, Nazi, Population Control, scandal, softkill, toxic earth, toxic waste, toxicity, US Crops, USDA, White House | Tags: coal-fired power plants, FGD gypsum
U.S. wants farmers to use coal waste on fields
Washington Post
December 23, 2009
The federal government is encouraging farmers to spread a chalky waste from coal-fired power plants on their fields to loosen and fertilize soil even as it considers regulating coal wastes for the first time.
The material is produced by power plant “scrubbers” that remove acid-rain-causing sulfur dioxide from plant emissions. A synthetic form of the mineral gypsum, it also contains mercury, arsenic, lead and other heavy metals.
The Environmental Protection Agency says those toxic metals occur in only tiny amounts that pose no threat to crops, surface water or people. But some environmentalists say too little is known about how the material affects crops, and ultimately human health, for the government to suggest that farmers use it.
“This is a leap into the unknown,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “This stuff has materials in it that we’re trying to prevent entering the environment from coal-fired power plants, and then to turn around and smear it across ag lands raises some real questions.”
With wastes piling up around the coal-fired plants that produce half the nation’s power, the EPA and U.S. Department of Agriculture began promoting what they call the wastes’ “beneficial uses” during the Bush administration.
Part of that push is to expand the use of synthetic gypsum — a whitish, calcium-rich material known as flue gas desulfurization gypsum, or FGD gypsum. The Obama administration has continued promoting FGD gypsum’s use in farming.
The administration is also drafting a regulatory rule for coal waste, in response to a spill from a coal ash pond near Knoxville, Tenn., one year ago Tuesday. Ash and water flooded 300 acres, damaging homes and killing fish. The cleanup is expected to cost about $1 billion.
The EPA is expected to announce its proposals for regulation early next year, setting the first federal standards for storage and disposal of coal wastes.
EPA officials declined to talk about the agency’s promotion of FGD gypsum before then and would not say whether the draft rule would cover it.
Field studies have shown that mercury, the main heavy metal of concern because it can harm nervous-system development, does not accumulate in crops or run off fields in surface water at “significant” levels, the EPA said.
“EPA believes that the use of FGD gypsum in agriculture is safe in appropriate soil and hydrogeologic conditions,” the statement said.
Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, which advocates for more effective enforcement of environmental laws, said he is not overly worried about FGD gypsum’s use on fields because research shows it contains only tiny amounts of heavy metals. But he said federal limits on the amounts of heavy metals in FGD gypsum sold to farmers would help allay concerns.
“That would give them assurance that they’ve got clean FGD gypsum,” he said.
Since the EPA-USDA partnership began in 2001, farmers’ use of the material has more than tripled, from about 78,000 tons spread on fields in 2002 to nearly 279,000 tons last year, according to the American Coal Ash Association, a utility industry group.
About half of the 17.7 million tons of FGD gypsum produced in the United States last year was used to make drywall, said Thomas Adams, the association’s executive director. But he said it is important to find new uses for it and other coal wastes because the United States will probably rely on coal-fired power plants for decades to come.
“If we can find safe ways to recycle those materials, we’re a lot better off doing that than we are creating a whole bunch of new landfills,” Adams said.
Filed under: agriculture, biochemical warfare, biological warfare, biosolids, CFS, Chemical Warfare, corruption, deception, Dictatorship, DoA, Empire, environmental disaster, EPA, Eugenics, food safety, health and environment, Human Experiments, human waste, malthusian, malthusian catastrophe, methanphetamines, Michael Mack, Michelle Obama, Nazi, Population Control, san francisco, scandal, softkill, syngenta, toxic earth, toxic waste, toxicity, US Crops, USDA, water safety, White House | Tags: Center for Food Safety
Toxic Sewage Sludge in Your Food
Mercola.com
December 16, 2009
The increasing use of sewage sludge as fertilizer for your food is an under-publicized and often hidden threat.
Sludge is the toxic mix that is created by our municipal wastewater treatment facilities. Just about anything that is flushed down toilets or that ends up in sewers is in this sludge; the pollutants in sludge come not just from household sewage, but also from every hospital, industrial plant, and stormwater drain.
For a long time, sludge was simply dumped in the oceans. Over time, it became apparent that this was an environmental and human health disaster. An alternative solution has been pushed since the 1980’s by the U.S. government. The EPA determined that a good way to dispose of treated sewage sludge was to legally distribute it as a cheap alternative to fertilizer.
Unsurprisingly, scientific analysis of the poisons in sewage sludge shows it’s the wrong, and dangerous, solution for U.S. farmers and communities. Unfortunately, many American farmers and gardeners are unknowingly using sludge-derived “compost,” which is given away free in many cities throughout the United States.
As a result, farms and homes across the country have been unknowingly spreading hazardous chemicals and heavy metals on their fields, lawns and gardens.
Meanwhile, Michael Mack, the chief executive of Syngenta, a Swiss agribusiness giant that makes pesticides, is waging war against the organic movement as a whole. He argues that, “Organic food is not only not better for the planet. It is categorically worse.”
“If the whole planet were to suddenly switch to organic farming tomorrow, it would be an ecological disaster,” he said. Pesticides, he argued, “have been proven safe and effective and absolutely not harmful to the environment or to humans.”
Of course, Mr. Mack dismissed the notion that Syngenta, a company that sold nearly $12-billion worth of “crop protection” technologies last year, felt threatened by the organic movement.
Dr. Mercola’s Comments:
If you’re looking for a compelling reason to switch to a primarily organic diet, the fact that it is free from sewage sludge fertilizers is a very good one. Sewage sludge, or “biosolids” — as they’re referred to with a PR spin — began being “recycled” into food crops when, ironically, it was realized that dumping them into rivers, lakes and bays was an environmental disaster.
Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states that about 50 percent of all biosolids are recycled to land. This sludge is what’s leftover after sewage is treated and processed.
Your first thought may be the “yuck factor” of human waste being used to fertilize your food, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. Every time a paintbrush gets rinsed, an old bottle of medications flushed, or solvents are hosed off a factory floor, it ends up in the sewage system.
So it’s not surprising that a past analysis of sewage sludge by the Environmental Working Group found:
- *Over 100 synthetic organic compounds including phthalates, toluene, and chlorobenzene
*Dioxins in sludge from 179 out of 208 systems (80%)
*42 different pesticides — at least one in almost every sample, with an average of almost 2 pesticides per survey sample
*Nine heavy metals, often at high concentrations
And it was sewage sludge that was partly blamed earlier this year for contaminating the White House lawn, and Michelle Obama’s organic vegetable garden, with lead.
This toxic sludge has been masterfully spun by PR masters into an acceptable, even “green,” fertilizer. Even San Francisco, arguably one of the “greenest” cities around, has been distributing toxic sewage sludge to homeowners and schoolyards and calling it “organic compost”! Nevermind that in 2008 its sludge was found to contain industrial chemicals, disinfectants, phenol, pesticides and solvents.
The Center for Food Safety (CFS) has recently petitioned San Francisco to stop this “compost” giveaway, lest it contaminate backyards and communities with toxic chemicals, but the sludge is still being widely used all across the United States.
If you want to get the real dirt on how this toxic sewage sludge has become such a popular fertilizer, I strongly encourage you to read Toxic Sludge is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry. It’s written by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, the authors of one of my favorite exposes on the PR industry, Trust Us, We’re Experts, and does not disappoin
What is Going On With the State of Agriculture in the United States?
They say truth is stranger than fiction, and the once respectable business of farming in the United States is a perfect example of how true this statement can be.
Gone are the days when farmers grew food according to the laws of nature, with a deserved respect for the Earth and its resources. Nowadays, with the exception of the small but growing movement of organic and sustainable farmers, it may surprise you to learn that farming — once the symbol of all that’s natural and wholesome — creates some of the worst pollution in the United States.
That’s because most “farming” today is nothing like the small farming of our ancestors. The Farm Sanctuary points out that farm animals produce 130 times more waste than humans. And agricultural runoff is the primary reason why 60 percent of U.S. rivers and streams are polluted.
Meanwhile, in areas where animal agriculture is most concentrated (Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, Illinois and Indiana round out the top five states with the most factory-farm pollution) bacteria known as pfiesteria is common in waterways. Not only does pfiesteria kill fish, it also causes nausea, memory loss, fatigue and disorientation in people!
Aside from the pollution, factory farms use vast quantities of resources. According to FactoryFarm.org, industrial milking centers that use manure flush cleaning and automatic cow washing systems, go through as much as 150 gallons of water per cow per day!
Energy costs are even steeper.
A 2002 study from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that industrial farms use an average of three calories of energy to create one calorie of food. Grain-fed beef is at the top of the list of offenders, using 35 calories of energy to produce one calorie of food! And this does not even take into account the energy used to process and transport the foods, so the real toll is even larger.
The Agribusiness Giants are Getting Out of Control!
On top of the environmental assaults, you have agribusiness executives like Michael Mack, the chief executive of pesticide manufacturer Syngenta, making outrageous statements like “Organic food is not only not better for the planet, it is categorically worse.”
What?!
His entire argument was based on the premise that organic farming takes up more land than non-organic farming for the same yield.
He obviously must have missed the recent study that examined a global dataset of 293 farming examples, which found that in developing countries organic systems produce 80% more than conventional farms. And a review of 286 projects in 57 countries found that farmers who used “resource-conserving” or ecological agriculture had increased agricultural productivity by an average of 79%!
- “It is clear that ecological agriculture is productive and has the potential to meet food security needs … Moreover, ecological agricultural approaches allow farmers to improve local food production with low-cost, readily available technologies and inputs, without causing environmental damage,” Lim Li Ching, the study’s author, writes.
Really, the question we should be asking ourselves shouldn’t be ‘Can organic or sustainable farming feed the world?’, but ‘How can food production possibly continue as it is?’
When I hear someone extolling the virtues of “modern” agriculture and wondering how “organic” or “sustainable” farming could possibly be the solution, I maintain that the fact we have come to accept inefficient, industrial practices, including dousing our food with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, as a viable way to grow food is the real wonder.
And then I always look at the source, which in this case is a pesticide giant CEO … which makes his motives very clear, indeed.
How Can You Find Safe Food for Your Family?
There are still safe food options out there, but it does take a bit of digging to find them. Your local grocery store is generally NOT going to be the best source for healthy, fresh food.
So, short of starting your own sustainable farm (which you can do on a small-scale in your own backyard), you can find safe food options by supporting sustainable agriculture movements in your area.
Make it a point to only buy food from a source you know and trust, one that uses safe and non-toxic farming methods. This will do your health a major favor and support the small family farms in your area. You’ll receive nutritious food from a source that you can trust, and you’ll be supporting the honest work of a real family farm instead of an agri-business corporation.
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