In case anyone is wondering why they are smelling something that resembles
the semi-digested contents of a dead animal's stomach while driving through
the countryside in rural Ottawa/West Carleton or West Quebec, it most likely
is the result of a growing trend in residual waste management: the spreading
of industrial waste and/or sewage sludge on agricultural land.

As disposal is becoming more costly and inconvenient due to stricter
pollution controls and increasing scarcity of available landfill sites, the
Ministry of Environment has created a programme that encourages farmers to
welcome the dumping on their fields of what industries and treatment
facilities are looking to get rid of. In West Quebec, farmers have been
receiving waste since 1999. Re-named 'bio-solids' (a rose by any other
name...), it is contaminated organic matter which is actually industrial
waste and sewage sludge from the pulp mill/waste treatment plant in Thurso,
Quebec. At first it was being sold to farmers for $1.50/tonne; then when it
became public knowledge that the substance contained 3% human waste, which
is illegal to sell anywhere in Canada, the farmers began receiving as much
of the product as they wanted (and in some cases more!) for free. Rumour has
it that they are now also being paid to take it. According to the company
that co-ordinated the project in 1999 and 2000, it is a great deal cheaper
to truck it hundreds of kilometers than it is to bury it.

There are of course many dimensions to this story. The brainchild of
Environment (which proudly proclaims the decrease in greenhouse gas
emissions achieved when the waste is turned under the soil as compared to
when it is landfilled), the Department of Agriculture and local soil clubs
as well as municipal councils are all cooperating to assist the pulp and
paper industry in its goal of maintaining the status quo in the processing
of trees into profits. The programme minimizes costs of waste disposal for
the mills (it is quoted in some sources that they produce as much as 30
tonnes per day), and provides the pulp industry with an opportunity to avoid
having to develop new technologies to reduce either the amount of waste
created or the contaminant levels of that waste.

If it weren't for the alarmingly high levels of cadmium, arsenic, lead, and
mercury; and the presence of a number of unknown bacteria (created in pulp
mill treatment ponds), as well as enough e-coli and total coliforms to
render ground water unsafe for animals to drink, the fact that the 162-page
French-only guidelines on 'Criteria for Safe Use' of this product have not
been distributed to the farmers who spread this sludge on their fields (or
the truckers who dump it) would be of no consequence.

These guidelines include such tips as a caution against using the product on
sand or sandy loam, a certain maximum amount to be used per acre, and a
prohibition on spreading it on land where the water table is 1 meter deep or
less or where the slope is greater than 9%. There are distance requirements
for residential areas, wells, creeks, lakes, and so forth. The product must
be worked into the ground immediately - no stockpiling. There are to be no
deliveries between May 15 and September 15; trucks are only allowed to come
between certain hours of the day; the public in the surrounding area is to
'be informed' that the product is coming; and - most importantly, the farmer
must make a formal application for a permit to use the product with approval
being contingent on the characteristics of the field to be spread.
Ironically, the agronome responsible for giving this approval is an employee
of the company whose revenue increases in direct proportion to the amount of
acreage spread with the product. This company also does all of the trucking
and dumping.

Between spring of 1999 and spring 2001 all of the above guidelines were
violated - in some cases repeatedly. The farmers still don't have copies of
the guidelines, and until this year were not aware that there was a 3% human
waste content in the product. There were complaints that once they asked for
the product and were approved, delivery continued all summer - even when
they asked them to stop! This sludge has been spread along creeks, around
ponds, next to swampland, and repeatedly on pure sand. The residents were
never informed that the product was coming; they just wondered why the air
smelled like vomit; that is until a protest was organized this spring. The
issue concerned the dumping and three-week stockpiling (the farmer 'forgot
about it') of many tonnes of sludge directly behind a residential area -much
less than the required 1500 meters. In one case the product was spread 14
meters from a family's well! There were people falling ill and going to the
hospital with severe digestive problems, three babies had unexplainable
respiratory complaints, the Public Health Department became involved -
sending out notices of alarm, and panic ensued. The municipal council was
attacked for their role in signing each of the permits and therefore being
aware of the sludge situation while neglecting to inform the residents. They
were also held accountable for failing to protect the health and safety of
those who elected them because they were (and still are) unwilling to place
a ban on the use of the product. The mayor, who works at the local pulp
mill, was accused of conflict of interest.

Council responded by holding an 'Information Night' in the community centre.
It was well attended, especially by all of those residents who were still -
one month later - purchasing all of their drinking and in some cases washing
water out of their own pockets - on order of the Public Health Department.
Unfortunately the people who attended were there to get answers. The mayor
opened the meeting by saying that everyone would listen to the seven
presentations that would be given (by persons whose incomes - in every
single case - derive directly from the continued use of the product). Then
at the end we would each be allowed one question. Immediately this idea was
vetoed, and chaos reined. Each presenter informed us that the next presenter
would answer our questions. We were shown footage of people fishing,
children playing, grain waving in the fields. People were told that if their
well tests showed contamination, it was probably because their septic tanks
were too close to their wells. Everyone was disrespected if they were
against the bio-solids. Four and a half hours later, the meeting was
adjourned. The next night at the regular monthly meeting of council, a
resolution was passed stating that since the speakers at the information
night demonstrated that without a doubt the product is safe, the
municipality would incorporate the use of sludge into their land-use
planning by-laws which were currently being developed.

There is much more to the story. There is the farmer from outside the
community who has never used the product on his own farm but goes around
persuading the poor landowners who have no means to work their land that he
will improve their soil by using this sludge, and it won't cost them
anything. Of course he reaps the harvest!  He also spreads too much too
close too often and has had permit violations (applying and being approved
for one farm while spreading on another), stockpiling violations, and
distance violations. There are few guidelines that he hasn't violated. We
have been told that they 'think' that he 'may' not be allowed to use the
product at all next year. In actual fact he wasn't even allowed to use it
THIS year, as the MENV revealed that his permit was not approved for any of
the fields that he applied for! When questioned, the trucking company
concocted a flimsy explanation for why they delivered the sludge to him at
all. A petition was circulated calling for a ban on the product and was
signed by more than 10% of the population - the amount required for the
council to take action. Council did nothing. We made a presentation at the
Regional Council of Municipal Mayors (Our mayor did not attend). A vote
taken on a regional ban on the product lost 7-9. The reason stated was a
fear of retaliation by the provincial government. Apparently this is one of
the down-sides of being an anglophone community in Quebec.

The local weekly newspaper - for some reason - seemed to support the use of
the product! They repeatedly twisted the story, misrepresented facts with
selective omissions and misquotes from the understandably irate citizens
while catering to the politicians who were trying to cover their butts! When
a letter was written to clarify the issue and to tell the truth, the editor
replied with an editorial about 'self-appointed guardians of our well-being'
who pass judgment on people. The editorial was entitled 'Glass Houses'. The
municipalities on either side of us placed a ban on the product while our
municipal council - which has jurisdiction over the place where all of the
problems occurred - continued to insist that they must support the farmers
and allow them to use the product. There are in actual fact only three
farmers who live in this municipality who want to use it, and one of them
works at the local pulp mill. (There are however many hundreds of acres in
our municipality spread with sludge by the aforementioned farmer who lives
elsewhere, and therefore is not concerned with consequences of irresponsible
sludge use.)

Another objection to placing a ban on the use of the sludge is that
municipalities cannot ban something that is approved by the province. Since
the Hudson case proved that that is not the case, there is an opportunity
for council to act, but still they do nothing.

Now a recent water test done on groundwater coming from an underground
spring under a field that was sludged in spring 2000 (and has never had
human, animal, or manure contact) shows the presence of huge numbers of
e-coli and total coliforms. When compared with a test on a normal well, the
differences are obvious. E-coli can only originate from human or animal
intestines. This is scientific fact. The conclusion is that next year the
wells that were too close to the spreading of the sludge this year will show
a great deal of contamination. The municipal council has been informed of
this, and they had best not point to the septic tanks.

We have run out of ideas on what to do. All politicians at every level of
every department have been contacted. Several scientists and even the top
sludge researcher have tried to help us. We have reached out to council in a
cooperative team-like manner, and they respond as though we are attacking
them. We have constantly repeated that this is for the public good, that
people in our region are not capable of using this product in a responsible
manner, that the system does not allow for dealing with problems that seem
to inevitably occur when people fail to follow the guidelines either
willingly or out of ignorance, that because there is no coordination between
the pulp mill, the trucking company, the Ministry of Environment, the
Department of Agriculture, the municipal council, the farmers, and the local
community that the program needs to be re-structured; we have suggested that
one of the government bodies involved set up workshops or courses to educate
the participants on proper sludge use; we have offered support in obtaining
documents such as the Supreme Court of Canada judgment in the Hudson case.
In every instance, when obstacles to banning the sludge have been removed,
the council finds new ones.

This is an opportunity for me to reach out to the green community and see
whether anything can be done before our entire water table - which drains
into the Ottawa river! - becomes contaminated.

Thank you!

Gretchen Schwarz