Signs of Recovery? Maybe!
Sewage Sludge from wastewater treatment plants is toxic waste, end of story.
Toxic sewage sludge kills many life forms, unless they get away. In our forests where thousands of tons of toxic sewage sludge are dumped each year, those who can run and hide, do so, but those who cannot, perish.
It is said by the sludge disposers that the open dumping toxic sewage sludge in forests and on farms and rangelands 'Improves Wildlife Habitat' and enriches the soil. That's a stretch, considering that it can take up to a year for the indigenous life forms to recover from such great toxic insult, while attempting to reestablish on these devastated lands.
Note the deep toxic sewage sludge that was disposed here in this forested wetlands in the Snoqualmie Forest eleven months ago; the new fern shoots are just now reappearing amongst the still-thick black sewage sludge. Slugs, worms, insects and so many other life forms are killed by mere contact with the toxic sludge or its leachate or runoff; it rains here all year, so there is a lot of water to move the toxins into the soils and on to the wetlands, streams, rivers, Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean.
Now that eleven months have passed, and so much of the toxic component of the sludge has degraded or leached away, we see the scat of bear, deer, elk, cougar, bobcat, fox, coyote and so much more, attempting to reestablish in this toxics-from-hell environment.
Along with the animals, we now see also the early re-establishment of populations of the algae, slugs, worms and insects that thrive in these forests under normal healthy conditions.
The slugs recycle the animal scat, which can be seen easily, but what you may not notice is that these sludge runoff puddles, which have been breeding grounds for algal forms that thrive on the phosphates and other toxic nutrients leached from the sludge, now finally also support populations of tadpoles, plus some insects, mostly mosquitoes. These first few re-colonizers are the most toxin-tolerant life forms, with others to follow later.
The Cup Fungus is not one of our Toxin-Tolerant Fungi of interest, but it is an early colonizer of the now well-leached sewage sludge dump piles.
Are we at last on the road to recovery for at least this one area, which fortunately is in the convergence zone of high rainfall, which speeds recovery?
Will these forests ever really recover from the long-term adverse effects of immersion in thousands of tons of flowing toxic waste each year?
Me thinks not. It will take decades, and what are the adverse effects on us in the interim?
Snoqualmie Forest sludge dump area, eleven months post dumping
Toxic Sewage Sludge slurry in the forested wetlands
An early re-colonizer slug, venturing across the algal bloom on a sludged site
Slug recycling bear scat
More bear scat being recycled
More bear droppings headed for the recycling bin
Cup Fungus on well-leached sewage sludge heap
Sludge leachate puddle that flows to an adjacent wetlands, now supporting first growth of new tadpoles
Sewage sludge runoff puddles, bordered by remediation grasses, still receiving sludge pile runoff, and now filled with tadpoles
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