What's In It?
Why are common fungi inhibited or killed by toxic sewage sludge disposed in our forests or on our farms and rangelands? What is in sewage sludge that kills these fungi? What other adverse human and environmental health effects may there be? Is synergistic toxicity at play here? Can we even survive such negligent practices?
Our sample collections include sewage sludge from wastewater treatment plants, leachate waters from land-disposed sewage sludge, and forest biota that bioassimilate, bioconcentrate and bioaccumulate toxic chemicals from the sludge and sludge leachates, which are thereafter part of the food chain in the forest cycle of life.
What near- and far-term damage is laid upon the forest and upon us, because of these reckless and negligent disposal practices?
The residual sewage sludge seen here is but a remnant of the toxic materials disposed in Marckworth State Forest about 18 months ago. Will it just go away, and if so, where?
We see that exposure to toxic sewage sludge is lethal to microbes, plants and animals across many taxa, suggesting that the inherent toxins may be the actual inciting agents of toxicity, or of chronic disease. We must discover the answer for our own survival. A critical first step is to identify the toxins associated with microbial competition (microbial antagonism) in this wild jungle of a sewage sludge-strewn environment on the forest floor.
Strange as it may be, those who permit, perform and monitor the open dumping of toxic sewage sludge in forests and on farms and rangelands know not what is in it, or what may be the adverse impacts on human and environment health. We will find out.
Hair, fibers, plastic and metal bits, and more, can be seen in the residual sewage sludge after 18 months in the forest, but it is that which cannot be seen, i.e., the toxic chemicals and microbes, that is most dangerous.
Hair and fibers are seen in the black sewage sludge remnants, now with green algae beginning to emerge.
Even 18 months of rain and snow cannot remove the physical evidence of open dumping, but what of the toxic chemicals and microbes we cannot see?
Human pathogenic microbes, i.e., infectious agents, are generally suppressed by the wastewater treatment process, but never killed or eliminated, and once released to the temperate forest or farm environment, they regrow, remaining just as infectious as before, but now more than likely even more resistant to antibiotics, and now often airborne in dusts and waterborne in ground and surface waters.
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