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Letter to BC Agriculture Council on Sludge Landspreading |
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September 27, 2007
Attention: Steve Thomson, Executive Director, BC Agriculture Council
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RE: Soil Amendment Code of Practice
The Soil Amendment Code of Practice was signed by the Minister of Environment in June of 2007, and came into effect September 1, 2007.
The Intentions Paper for the Code was responded to by a wide variety of citizens and groups from across the province with grave concerns and questions over the proposed land-spreading of toxic industrial waste. The land-spreading of pulp mill sludge is a practice that has been actively protested in the past, but up until now has required special permits from the Ministry of Environment. The Code now allows a simple notification process.
Wastes qualifying as 'soil amendment’ in the code include: fly-ash,
pulp mill sludge, lime mud or waste, industrial or domestic water
treatment sludge and industrial wood waste. Sludge is the result of
Industrial waste treatment and domestic sewage treatment. It contains
the harmful substances removed from liquid waste before treated
effluent is returned to the environment. Similarly, fly ash is
captured by pollution prevention equipment on combustion facilities in
order to prevent the release of toxic particulates into the atmosphere.
While pulp mill and sewage sludge does contain organic matter and plant
nutrients, it is also known to contain a range of heavy metals,
benzenes and phenolics. It can contain a wide array of bacterial and
chemical contaminants, depending on what gets flushed through the
system at any time, but is likely to include pharmaceuticals, solvents,
petroleum products and endocrine disrupting chemicals, extremely
harmful to human and environmental health. Many of these chemicals
have persistent and bio-accumulative effects, increasing in
concentration as they travel through the food chain.
This code contains no measures for enforcement or compliance, provides
insufficient testing, and ignores the long term impacts of exposing the
public and workers to industrial toxins.
Lands eligible to receive the waste include agricultural lands,
including Agricultural Land Reserve, food producing and livestock
grazing lands. The consequences of releasing industrial waste of
unknown composition through agricultural lands of BC are potentially
very serious.
The letter attached to the Minister of Environment from provincial and
national groups expresses these concerns and requests that the Minister
reverse the legislation and contain industrial waste. Please review
this letter, share this information within your organization and
consider adding your organization’s voice by signing on to this
initiative to keep BC’s farms and forests free from industrial waste.
See the letter to the Minister of Environment from Concerned Groups |
Letters