1 March 16
As Hamilton hunkers down before a snow storm, a storm of a slightly different kind broke over the editorial pages of my favorite hometown newspaper. It carried an Op-ed today headlined, "Scientists' open letter on the dangers of biosolids."
The four scientists were: independent scientist Sierra Rayne, Ph.D.; senior science and policy adviser for the David Suzuki Institute John Werring, M.Sc., RPBio; the executive director of The Precautionary Group Richard Honour, Ph.D.; and Louise Brown Professor of Neuroscience with the depart of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia Steven R. Vincent, Ph.D.
The open letter amounts to a bit of fear-mongering combined with a recommendation. The fear-mongering concerns the "inconceivably large" "complexity" in biosolid waste that is typically landfilled by municipalities. In short, the four are offering fear of the unknown as reason to accept their recommendation. By "unknown" they mean things that they do not know, and don't believe anyone else does either; and the fact that the evils they speculate about have not been observed yet acts as no brake upon their speculations.
The enemy they concoct is "Big Sludge," which, so far as I can tell, are municipalities looking to sell solid waste to a willing buyer.
A few quotes from the letter: "The current and future problem is inconceivably large, particularly since the human population is producing sewage sludge at a rapidly growing rate."
"Immediately halt the land disposal of sewage sludge as a starting point, and begin either stockpiling or landfilling the material in secure locations with full leachate systems until a more responsible means of dealing with the problem is implemented."
"We also see municipalities and regional districts talking about the revenue from selling their sludge for land disposal, but are they telling the taxpayers they are supposed to represent about the very large potential risks from the knowing and willful contamination of lands, waters, and the atmosphere that arises from these choices?"
"Increased health care costs, decreased property values and toxic tort lawsuits have collective liabilities to Big Sludge over time that far outweigh the relatively small cash flows current coming into the public purse. Governments are playing Russian roulette with sewage sludge. Over time, there is a high probability that game will be lost at the public's expense."
A few points, the fact that the human populations of India and China are gaining proper waste disposal and water treatment facilities should be considered a good thing, but the fact that they are in no way impacts the amount of sewage sludge that we in Hamilton and we in Canada produce. Thus quote 1 is disposed of. Point 2 is covered in the material below. The four scientists should have consulted a lawyer about points 3 and 4 because in Canada governments are generally immune from class torts, particularly if best known practices are employed by the municipality. What would be the point of the citizens of Hamilton collectively suing the City of Hamilton? If the citizens won, their government would, for example, go bankrupt and then the citizens would have to bail it out. Stupid.
As I said, a lot of fearmongering. My reply to the credentialed is below:
The four scientist who raised concerns about the disposal of
biosolids believe that storing these solids in a concentrated form is safer
than storing them in diluted form, as they currently are in solid waste
disposal sites. They say that storage in concentrated form should be done
until, “a more responsible means of dealing with the problem is implemented.”
The means of dealing with the problem is known. The
ultimate destruction of organic material is achieved by incineration. If
held long enough at high enough temperatures, even the toughest organic
molecule will be reduced to carbon dioxide and other simple molecules. A
technology of that sort that was supposed to be built in Hamilton, but has been
harassed into near oblivion by environmentalist worries.
The environmentalist movement, which the four scientists
represent, is insufficiently organized to make decisions about what it will and
will not accept. There is always a purer strain of environmentalism that
will say no to a proposed solution. No organization in the movement looks
at the big picture and can speak authoritatively on its behalf.
The result is that one wing of the movement raises an issue
the solution to which another wing rejects. And the public is left
baffled and unsatisfied as to the right thing to do.
-30-
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