Tell Your Legislators: It’s Time to Act!

It’s simple to email your Washington State legislators to ask them to support bills to keep us safe from sewage sludge.

Just copy the following text, then enter your address in the form below it and you will land on an OpenStates page with links to your legislators’ email addresses (opens in new window). Use a subject line like “No More Sewage Sludge on Ag Land” and paste in the message.

Dear Legislator,

We need the following legislation. Please sponsor bills in the 2019 legislative session:

1) To ban the land-application of sewage sludge;

2) To get safety warning labels on all products that contain biosolids;

3) To label foods that were grown using sewage sludge.

2019 is the year Washington citizens take sewage sludge off our kitchen tables and put it on the legislative table. We won’t accept the dumping of sewage sludge on agricultural land. Be ready, we’re going to bring it into the public policy conversation in a big way.

Way back in 2002, the National Academies of Science National Research Council issued a report on a biosolids research study, funded by EPA, which concluded: “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s standards that govern using treated sewage sludge on soil are based on outdated science… The agency should update its standards using improved methods for assessing health risks, and should further study whether treated sewage sludge causes health problems for workers who apply it to land and for residents who live nearby… More rigorous enforcement of the standards is needed as well;”

Now, sixteen years later, the Environmental Protection Agency’s own Office of Inspector General published a new report: “EPA Unable to Assess the Impact of Hundreds of Unregulated Pollutants in Land-Applied Biosolids on Human Health and the Environment.” In it, the OIG complained that the EPA isn’t making the public aware that “potentially harmful and unregulated pollutants,” such as pharmaceuticals, steroids and flame retardants, are present in biosolids.
https://tinyurl.com/2018-epa-oig

Clearly the EPA, which sets the standards for the states, has dropped the ball and has not responded to these concerns.

What the science says, but the regulators refuse to heed, is that disposal of sewage sludge on land where we grow our food cannot be considered “safe.”

That’s why now it’s up to the state legislature to step up to protect public health and the environment. Sponsor a bill today!

Find your Washington State Legislators:

Enter your address on one line, e.g. ‘1234 Something St., Somecity, WA 12345’


Motivated Activists Wanted. (Open)

click here to close

If you're serious, join the "No Sludge on Ag Land" Google Group to network with others and get shit done.

We're working on ending the practice of spreading sewage sludge on farmland and forests in Washington State.

You don't need to have a Google Account to be on the listserve. Fill out this form and you will be added to the listserve if approved. It will be set up so your messages to the group will go to each member of the group and all replies will go to all members of the group (good transparency and keeping folks in the loop). To reduce clutter, individual replies may also be used. It is a private group.

Please tell us a little about yourself and why you want to help organize around this issue.

Also, you may send us the email addresses and first and last names of people you think it would be good to have on the list. We will send them invitations. If they are interested, they can opt in.

click here to close