Earth Equity News

Oregonian Farmers Getting Over Biosolids Stigma. AP, October 27, 2008. "Once dismissed as unsafe, human waste is fast becoming the fertilizer of choice for a growing number of Oregon farmers who say it offers an alternative to increasingly expensive chemical fertilizers. A few years ago, wastewater treatment officials sometimes had trouble finding enough fields to dispose of biosolids, the industry's preferred name for the sludge that remains after sewage treatment. But as petroleum prices have jumped, so has demand for an alternative to chemical fertilizers, [which] because of the petroleum-intensive process used to create them... have seen a doubling or tripling in prices in recent years... Many farmers get biosolids for free because wastewater treatment plant operators in places such as Clackamas County consider it more cost effective to spread them on fields rather than haul them to landfills... In Clackamas County alone, demand has more than tripled. Last year, biosolids from the Tri-City Water Pollution Control Plant were spread over 1,536 acres. This year, county officials have booked 5,220 acres... Still, biosolids are spread on less than 1 percent of all Oregon farmland, according to the Department of Environmental Quality, which regulates their use. Though some people worry that biosolids contaminate water, sicken people and ruin soil, Craig Cogger, a soil scientist at Washington State University, said the stigma is disappearing. Biosolids are mostly made of dead bacteria bodies and are a sustainable way to grow crops fed to animals, Cogger said."