As a result of sewage sludge being applied to pastureland adjacent to my home in Greene County in August 2005, I lost five weeks of work (organic grower) due to violent nausea due to the odor.  I contracted a respiratory infection which took me five months to get rid of and I am left with allergies for the first time in 71 years.  Despite calls to national, state and local officials, from EPA to health departments, I was told the same thing, "It's safe".  I know better through living experience.

This material is not fertilizer, it is a pollutant.  It needs better monitoring and testing of the sludge itself, before and after it is mixed with all of the imported material and before the product is put on the land.  Heavy metals do not go away. I support any legislation that will put into motion processes that will ascertain the total contents of this material and its affect on human and animal health.

The most distressing part of the spreading of this material near my home was the transfer of the particulate matter being carried by the prevailing wind onto my property.  I grow my food and work my land with no synthetic or organic chemicals of any sort.  I could now be dealing with contaminated soil in which I grow my food.    Would you eat food grown in sludge as it exists currently?