Richard Honour

Richard Honour

May 07, 2015

Group 6 Copy 69
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The Unknowables: The X Factors

Principle I: Sewage Sludge is one of the most toxin-rich materials known to man.

Principle II: Open Dumping of Land-Disposed Sewage Sludge introduces sludge-borne toxins into our living environment.

Principle III: Many or most living things exposed to Toxic Sewage Sludge succumb to the toxins contained therein.

Principle IV: Certain forest fungi are induced to produce self-protective chemicals in response to toxic insult by Land-Disposed Sewage Sludge.

Question: What are the sources of the toxins contained in Sewage Sludges produced by Wastewater Treatment Plants (WTPs) and Publicly-Owned Treatment Works (POTWs)?

Answer: Everyone and Everything are the sources, and all sludges from all WTPs and POTWs are considered as being toxic until proven to be non-toxic, which has never been done.

Identifying the individual sources of the toxins, and the toxins themselves, is a difficult prospect, even if it could be done, simply because by the very nature of the WTP and POTW processes, and by the very complex physics and chemistry thereof, the contents of the resulting Sewage Sludges are unknowable, and are always in flux; the contents are source-dependent and environment-dependent, as a function of what goes into it and just what happens while in there – the X Factors, the Unknowables.

Even the microbiology of Sewage Sludge is unknowable, considering that only about 0.01% or less of microbes can be cultured, and even fewer can be identified, even by nucleic acid analysis (The Sewage Sludge Microbiome Project has never been done).

Even more so, genetic materials are endlessly being shuttled across and between microbes (including infectious agents, or pathogens) in a WTP or POTW incubator environment, by means of horizontal transfer, as mediated by plasmids and bacteriophage, among other natural mechanisms. It is the means of evolution, all packaged nicely in the Perfect Storm of toxins and infectious agents, altogether in a WTP or POTW incubator environment.

But wait: There's more! You mean this is what we dump openly in our forests and on our farms and rangelands, asks even school kids? Yes, by plan and intent, our local, state and federal agencies, simply as a convenient and low cost means of disposal, and no matter their weak attempts at rationale and justification, proactively discard Toxic Sewage Sludge in our forests and on our farms and rangelands. They're like drug addicts craving the next hit, ahead of detox or withdrawal.

One easily identifiable source of toxins in Sewage Sludge is all of the veggie labels, plastics, drug packaging materials, metals seals, bone fragments, bodily fluids, biological wastes, fibers, contraceptive devices, hair and whatall that are discarded down any drain, garbage disposal unit or toilet – it all heads south to the nearest WTP or POTW on the way to our forests and food-generating farms. And more, the degradation products of those synthetic materials during the WTP and POTW processes generate new and novel materials that are even more toxic.

Are we saying that the wastewater treatment process generates toxins of and by itself: Yeah!

The Pacific Tree frog is just a hapless chunk of croaking biota along the way, being the bioassay for us all; How's he doin'?

Drug packaging materials are shown to contain residual drug product when discarded

Veggie Labels of many diverse materials are the common clue that the black, stinking, slimy, lumpy stuff in the forest or on the farm is sewage Sludge

Veggie Labels, are also referred to commonly as Produce Stickers

Some Produce Stickers are made of edible paper, but they decompose rapidly, and are thus not seen in forest or field

Metal drug product seals are usual finds in Land-Disposed Sewage Sludge; they remain in the forest or on the farm for decades

Remnants of various plastic products may be of unknown origin, and some degrade into highly toxic chemicals

Other plastics are beyond recognition

This forest wetlands received Toxic Sewage Sludge at a rate beyond what plant life forms can assimilate as a nitrogen or nutrient source, or even tolerate, and the thick layer of oily, greasy Sewage Sludge seals the ground below, assuring massive methane generation. There is another wetlands downhill in the background that receives the runoff and leachate from this sludge-dumped wetlands.

This toxin-tolerant Pacific Tree Frog is a sentinel bioassay for us, while many other life forms have disappeared. This lethargic frog resides on the edge of the dumped wetlands. I neither encountered nor heard any frogs within the dumped wetlands.

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About This Project

The Precautionary Group

We've discovered a few new mushrooms thriving in this harsh environment of land-disposed sewage sludge in Snoqualmie, Washington. We're testing these mushrooms for new antimicrobial properties. Microbes that survive exposure to toxic sewage sludge engage adaptive mechanisms that transform toxins into secondary metabolites.

Blast off!

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