No risk to health,' but it's still quarantined

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Farmers who allowed sewage sludge from the City of Ottawa on their fields will likely  never know if it contains the same radioactive material that wasn't allowed into the United States recently.

Some of Ottawa's biosolids are shipped to a location in upstate New York, where it is used to make compost. Two truckloads were turned away by American border authorities on Jan. 29. A few days later, the city of Ottawa tested two more loads before shipping and again found "background level" radiation. The city says that the loads were safe, but the trucks were quarantined anyway, like the others.

Michael Payne, biosolids specialist with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, says that biosolids spread on farm fields in Ontario are not checked for radioactive isotopes "on a regular basis."

The city of Ottawa says that the isotopes were traced back to hospital waste and hospitals have been reprimanded about how waste is treated.

Better Pork asked the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission if isotopes to be spread on local farmland were also tested. "I have no idea what the end use was going to be," said spokesman Aurèle Gervais. "You would have to contact the City of Ottawa for that." In a published statement, the commission "assures the public that this material poses no risk to the health, safety and security of Canadians as well as the environment."

Several years ago, Ottawa spent $1.5 million trying to prevent a pig barn from being built in Sarsfield, one of its rural areas. Now it's something else in the National Capital Region that stinks. BP