For decades, a little-known company now owned by a Goldman Sachs fund has been making millions of dollars from the unlikely dregs of American life: sewage sludge.
The company, Synagro, sells farmers treated sludge from factories and homes to use as fertilizer. But that fertilizer, also known as biosolids, can contain harmful “forever chemicals” known as PFAS linked to serious health problems including cancer and birth defects.
Farmers are starting to find the chemicals contaminating their land, water, crops and livestock. Just this year, two common types of PFAS were declared hazardous substances by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Superfund law.
Now, Synagro is part of a major effort to lobby Congress to limit the ability of farmers and others to sue to clean up fields polluted by the sludge fertilizer, according to lobbying records and interviews with people familiar with the strategy. The chairman of one of the lobbying groups is Synagro’s chief executive.
PFAs is merely the latest buzz word for this topic. Don’t we know toxins like lead, arsenic, and mercury are likely to be present.
“No safe level” to me is bs, but can be extremely versatile for the activists. They can beef up test methods to make them ten or a hundred times more sensitive any time they want to.
What do you propose doing with sewage sludge from across the nation? Milwaukee sells theirs as Milorganite fertilizer. In St Louis we are investing in a new incinerator. The sludge is expected to be mostly toilet paper and maybe the likes of kitty litter.
Sending it all to toxic landfills does not seem practical. More mountains of toxic trash!!
Check the output for rare earths content. Coal ash ponds are already being explored for them–even if in fairly low concentrations. It can be cost-effective because the highest cost–digging it from the ground–has already been done and paid for long ago.
I think this is wishful thinking. Industries that pollute repeatedly can be tracked down and regulated. Individuals dumping stuff down the drain is a problem. In East Windsor, NJ they tracked mercury contamination in the sewers to a former dentist’s office where they had done mercury amalgam fillings for decades. The drains from the office were the source.
This is also the problem with plastic recycling. Post consumer waste can contain anything you can imagine. Metals, batteries, pesticides, used motor oil, paint, etc, etc. Very difficult to prevent that. And the reason China stopped accepting recycled plastic bundles from the US.
We need to enforce the laws, and we need to do that in a rational manner, as sewers were originally thought of as being for “dirty bad stuff”, but now need to be thought of as “black water free of nasty chemicals” while we design newer systems and replace older ones so that clean water, gray water, black water, and nasty stuff are all diposed and sorted in a manner that cuts costs, recycles useful stuff, and allows for far more efficient use of precious water.
And yes, good luck with that, not because it is difficult but because people are mostly wasteful, short term, backwards thinking idiots.
In Missouri we are well known for our lead mines. People are looking into recovering rare earths from lead mine tailings. We shall see how it goes. At least rare earths have market value making recovery potentially a paying business. PFA recovery is a different problem. You have expenses with the recovery/treatment and will probably pay to dispose of what ever you recover. No profit potential. Unless you find someone to foot the bill. Lawsuit settlements on manufacturers are not likely large enough. Superfund could be the final source of funds.
As rare earths are being hoarded by some and being used as a bargaining chip by others, the US govt will willingly underwrite the costs of recovery because it serves a “national defense and national economy” purpose. Whoever gets the contract(s) will do VERY well–with essentially guaranteed profits.
Yes, US,Air Force has at least one such contract. Business can continue to operate if govt price & volume cover costs. Tariffs can keep out competition from China et al. giving US producer competitive advantage in domestic markets. Exports vs China are problematic as China can undercut prices.
Subsidies would be more beneficial. They would make US producers profitable in the global market. And that could be what China is up to.