Clinton's contaminate Obama's garden

[vurbano]

This is just too funny.

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/clinton-sludge-ruining-obama-garden




When First Lady Michelle Obama planted an organic vegetable garden on the White House lawn in March 2009, she hoped to both set an example of healthy eating and to grow tasty edibles for her daughters and husband. But Michelle’s organic dream has been dashed by a nasty toxic legacy lurking in the soils of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It turns out that a previous Presidential gardening team had used sewage sludge for fertilizer.

This is a fairly common practice with one huge problem. Sewage sludge tends to be laced with anything that people pour down the drain and often contains heavy metals. Not surprisingly, the National Park Service tested the dirt beneath Michelle’s garden and found the plot has highly elevated levels of lead averaging 93 parts per million. That’s below the 400 ppm that the Environmental Protection Agency says is a threat to human health. But I’d wager that Sasha, Malia and Barack won’t be getting arugula or tomatoes from this garden any time soon.

The likely source of the toxic sludge that has ruined Michelle’s garden? The Clinton White House apparently used a sludge-based product to fertilize the lawn during the 1990s! Aside from casting a shadow on the first White House vegetable garden since Eleanor Roosevelt resided there, the sludge ensures that Michelle’s garden will never attain organic status. Organic certification processes strictly prohibit the use of sludge as a fertilizer substitute.

The White House has sought to downplay the issue, and a number of experts have pointed out that 93 ppm of sludge in soil is somewhat normal for older urban locales. However, the EPA recommends not growing food in soil that has 100 ppm. Several major food producers, including H.J. Heinz and Del Monte, won’t accept produce grown in sludge. That’s despite decades of U.S. government efforts to encourage farmers to use solid sewage wastes in lieu of traditional fertilizer products.

[Bob Haller]

no biggie this fall excate a hole looking like a swimming pool and move in virgin soil........

[markh]

For organic certification it takes three years of not applying pesticides or non-organic fertilizers. Prior to the revision of organic standards in 2000 sewage products were allowed.

[HD MM]

"Sewage Sludge"? Ewe.

This is why I am using a raised bed for my garden.

[vurbano]

"Sewage Sludge"? Ewe.

This is why I am using a raised bed for my garden.Whats that got to do with the type of fertilzer you are going to use? Many fertilzers/composts are made from human waste. I would guess every treatment facility does it. http://www.hrsd.com/nutrigreen.htm

[Bear Paws]

]"Sewage Sludge"? Ewe. ?? You have been using sewage sludge all your life. Its everywhere.. Figuring how old and long the human race has been crapping on earth I would guess there are not many places "untouched". Its like a forest. The floor is 50% crap from Bears, beavers, birds and bugs.. That's the bacteria that decomposes the debris.


This is why I am using a raised bed for my garden. How does raised beds keep you from useing sludge?

During the 70s I think "organic Gardening Magazine was talking up the useing sludge idea as saving the planet from the imminent ice age that would end life on earth by the year 2000. I don't remember the connection. It was about the time a cadre of renowned scientists wanted to blanket the polar ice caps in black soot to promote ice cap melting to head off the impending doom.

Before Global Warming became the politically correct scientific fashion of the 1990s, the reverse situation existed in the 1970s, where it had become a scientific article of faith that the Ice Age was about to happen. Even the US National Academy of Sciences adopted this view. Carl Sagan advocated releasing greenhouse gases to ward off the ice age and this propaganda was shown as the PBS cosmos series often shown in elementary, junior and senior high schools.

I'm a organic grower but not a eco freak..I use no chemical fertilizers and very rarely only rotenone and pyrethrum.. and gasoline for the tillers and tractors.
I just grow enough for the bugs too. I'm a big mulcher with straw if cheap or hay. (pref second cutting). I never felt safe with "commercial sludge" from treatment plants and never used it. They used to sell it as pasteurized or some sh*t like that. I have used soil from a old cesspool..

I have large raised beds for primarily early drainage in the spring. We have a lot of clay and a high water table. Amazing for living on a 800 foot small mountain. The greatest advantage of raised beds for most gardeners is soil aeration because you don't walk on it and compact the soil thus allowing the aerobic bacteria to do its thing on the "natural" amendments. The tilth is much more friable.

[vurbano]

I'd bust a gut laughing if old HD MM was dumping bags of organic compost into his raised bed not fully understanding what it was exactly.

[Bob Haller]

all water has been used before, think of that as you drink your bottled water:)

its reused sewage with a touch of rot from dead bodies:)

[Bear Paws]

I'd bust a gut laughing if old HD MM was dumping bags of organic compost into his raised bed not fully understanding what it was exactly.
I get a 4 yd truck load of well rotted cow manure in the spring from a friend down the road.. During the winter we throw everything into the gardens from lobster shells to coffee grounds. During the growing season we make a compost pile and throw it in for the fall rototilling. When we had chickens (usually around 45) we would clean out the coup in the spring and pile it and then spread it out in the garden in the fall and crank that in too. We left the summer chicken doo on the coup floor during the winter for its heat. Haven't had chickens for 3 year now. Fresh eggs where nice but it was really break even. Then there was the work. The old story.. My wife's hobby ...my job.

[Bear Paws]

all water has been used before, think of that as you drink your bottled water:)

its reused sewage with a touch of rot from dead bodies:) You like that....Bob? :)

[HD MM]

I'd bust a gut laughing if old HD MM was dumping bags of organic compost into his raised bed not fully understanding what it was exactly.

Funny. I've never read "sewage sludge" as part of the ingredients in Top Soil or the Organic Plant Tone I use in my garden. Plus, I have a compost pile I make myself from naturally decomposing items. I don't crap in it either.

[HD MM]

I'd bust a gut laughing if old HD MM was dumping bags of organic compost into his raised bed not fully understanding what it was exactly.

The contaminated garden you referenced in your OP was from contaminated soil from fertilization in years past. Michelle didn't just dump organic fertilizer/compost on her new garden.

And just so you know, it isn't common to put human/pet waste in ORGANIC fertilizer/compost. Actually, it's highly advised against. Maybe you hilljacks from the south like to wallow and eat your own waste, but us sophisticates up North sure as hell don't!

[HD MM]

How does raised beds keep you from useing sludge?



By raised beds I mean that I boxed out an area and filled with top soil and my own natural compost. I use organic plant tone fertilizer from time to time. My veggies and herbs don't touch the actual ground. Just the stuff I dump into it so I know what goes in there.

[msmith198025]

The contaminated garden you referenced in your OP was from contaminated soil from fertilization in years past. Michelle didn't just dump organic fertilizer/compost on her new garden.

And just so you know, it isn't common to put human/pet waste in ORGANIC fertilizer/compost. Actually, it's highly advised against. Maybe you hilljacks from the south like to wallow and eat your own waste, but us sophisticates up North sure as hell don't!

Well that is the knee jerk reaction that he wanted....

[fallout2600]

Maybe you hilljacks from the south like to wallow and eat your own waste, but us sophisticates up North sure as hell don't!

:augentreher:

That's a sophisticated statement?

[vurbano]

The contaminated garden you referenced in your OP was from contaminated soil from fertilization in years past. Michelle didn't just dump organic fertilizer/compost on her new garden.
When did I say Michelle did it. Can you read? My God you are simple.

[vurbano]

By raised beds I mean that I boxed out an area and filled with top soil and my own natural compost. I use organic plant tone fertilizer from time to time. My veggies and herbs don't touch the actual ground. Just the stuff I dump into it so I know what goes in there.Good so you know the difference.

[vurbano]

And just so you know, it isn't common to put human/pet waste in ORGANIC fertilizer/compost.
Every sewage treatment Plant that I know of does it. Its perfectly safe if the metal content is low enough.


Akron is investing $835,000 in the plant, Gresser said. That money is coming from the $250,000 a year the city now gets from KB Compost Services in rebates for the sale of soil-additive materials from the city-owned composting plant that processes sewage solids, he said.
http://www.biosolids.org/news_weekly.asp?id=2008

Oh looky there, even your backward Ohio people do it.

And BTW we recycle the methane into power here, just like you WANT to do.

tell me have you nose picking deliverance banjo playing idiots stopped dumping your sewage sludge in the rivers up there yet?

[vurbano]

Maybe you hilljacks from the south like to wallow and eat your own waste, but us sophisticates up North sure as hell don't!

Yeah we are just hilljacks. I guess thats why Carriers pull up outside my window: