Warning over ‘dirty secret’ of toxic chemicals on farmers fields

A former chairman of the environment agency has told the BBC that governments have failed to deal with the risk of spreading sewage mud with poisonous chemicals on the farmers’ fields.

About 3.5 million tonnes of mud – solid waste produced from human sewage in treatment plants – is placed on the fields every year as cheap fertilizers.

But campaigners have long warned of lack of regulation and this mud may be contaminated with cancer -related chemicals, microplastics and other industrial pollutants.

Emma Howard Boad, who led EA from 2016 to 2022, says the agency had known from 2017 that mud could be contaminated with substances including ‘Forever Chemicals’.

“Forever Chemicals” or PFA is a group of synthetic chemicals that come from things such as non-stick sauce paps. They do not reduce nature quickly and are connected to cancer.

Documents viewed by BBC News show that the water industry is now rapidly worried that farmers can stop accepting mud to spread and water firms have advocated regulators and have made casual plans in the rules of change in case.

Ms. Howard Boyd says that attempts to update the rules, which returned in 1989, were constantly disappointed with the lack of ministerial hunger to involve new contaminants “to include new contaminants. In a public letter signed by more than 20 others He called upon the current environment minister Steve Reid to act now.

The Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said that the BBC rules are being seen around the spread of mud. Water companies trade body water UK told the BBC that they were aware of concerns, but no legal standards were set by the government for the contaminants.

Unlike cleaned water, which is discharged from waste water treatment plants, sewage mud, or biosolids as the industry calls it, it is considered a “discounting waste”.

This means that treatment mainly focuses on killing bacteria and testing for heavy metals in mud.

There is no regular tests for chemicals, including “Forever Chemicals”, developed in the last three decades and are getting into sewage networks from both domestic and industrial users.

Alastair Boxol, Professor of Environmental Sciences at York University, says, “I think the great concern is that these substances (forever chemicals) are so consistent that they will remain in the soil for hundreds of years.”

“It may be in 10 years of time that we begin to understand that these molecules are harming,” he said. “Then we are going into a little disturbance, because we will be in a situation where we will have soil in the UK which will have the remains of these molecules, and at the moment we have no way to clean it.”

In 2022, the US State of Main became the first state to ban the spread of contaminated mud with “Forever Chemicals” after high levels in water, soil and crops.

Reports and emails shown by BBC by uncontrolled investigation unit of Greenpeace And obtained using the requests of the Independence of Information Act, the water industry finds out that the approach is changing the approaches and both are advocating and making contingent plans.

Companies are worried on the two fronts: that the general rules about the spread of mud on the ground (the so -called farming rules) may soon be tough that it may tighten due to fear that it is polluting the watercourse and the worries of the farmers about the chemicals in the mud may not be ready to keep them on their fields.

The water industry has already released a report that what can happen if the dissemination is banned.

One of them predicts that the “most likely” landscape is a lack of about three million hectares in the land required to spread mud. The water industry says that it will either incite them or put it in the landfill. Both options will bring additional costs that will be passed to billperes.

Reshima Sharma of Greenpeace said, “This investigation is still more proof that we cannot rely on privatelywater water companies to deal with the waste.”

“As long as they can get away with it, they will just pass any problem in our rural areas and put the money in the pocket that they should invest in the solution.”

A report commissioned by the Environment Agency in 2017 found that mud had potential harmful substances, including microplastics and “forever chemicals”, at levels that “can offer a risk for human health” and make soils that are “unsuitable for agriculture”.

It states that “perhaps the biggest risk for landbank” is from the spread of physical contacts such as microplastics such as microplastics. The report also stated that it has heard the evidence of EA employees that some companies may use “individual high risk suitable for spreading land for masks disposal of waste water treatment plants”.

“EA colleagues were constantly disappointed with the lack of ministerial appetite to deal with the issue,” at that time the chairman of the regulator, Ms. Howard Boad, told the BBC in an email.

“Since 2020, EA was treated with a lack of urgency to improve proposals, the ministers concerned were delayed in passing the requests to make decisions, and a consistent failure by the gradual secretaries of the state to take the matter seriously.”

Ms. Howard Boyd has signed a jointly signed letter by the campaign group Fighting Dirty. This calls the content of sewage “dirty secret” mud and demands that the Environment Secretary Steve Reed take action.

Sewage mud is cheaper than other fertilizers, and can sometimes be free, although farmers may have to spread it themselves.

Julie Lewis-Thompson told me that it had a “smell of death”.

“It performs sex in the air somewhere around two to three weeks,” she tells me when I go to her house on Dartmur in the southwest of England.

She collects a group of neighbors together, which was all a direct experience of sewage mud, spreading near their qualities. Before we start recording that there is a long discussion about whether they should talk about harassing farmers and contractors who spread mud, which are often local.

Many of his concerns are about smell and possible contamination of their water sources. A young woman goes into tears saying that she has made her sick.

A local beef and sheep farmer Richard Smallwood, who does not use sewage mud, has spread for free to lift some eyebrows. “

“If we are starting to produce food on grasslands and arable land, which fills the ear hole with PFAS compounds and nano and micro-plastic, who find your way in the food chain, then I think I think before my job starts.”

With sewage mud disposal options, there is widespread consensus that the recycling of the mud in fertilizer is to be made to work.

“I think by using human sewage properly to spread on the ground, put it back into the ground for growing food in the UK, this is the right thing,” Hugh Fernley-Vittingstall, Cook, Writer and Prasar, tells me in my little farm and cafe in Eastern Devon. He has also signed a protest letter to the Environment Minister.

“We know that this is happening. Our farmers are concerned correctly. We have to take action. The government has taken action.”

“This means that rules are not voluntary rules or guidelines, [they should be] Legislatively implemented rules that prevent these pollutants in sewage and on our land. ,

Despite concerns, there are still many farmers who see mud as a cheap way to fertilize their fields.

Will Oliver National Farmers Union is on the board of crops. He says that he applies about 800 tonnes of sewage mud every year in areas where he grows maize for animal feed.

The water company provides free mud and Mr. Oliver says that it is careful how much it uses the company and rely to ensure that it does not have chemical contamination.

“If we can be intelligent how it is used and spreads on the ground, it can be positive for farmers and water companies,” they say.

“I am doing this because it is adding value. It is improving in our biological matter. It is benefiting the crop that I am growing, and it is reducing my expenses, which is on fertilizers.”

The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had not chosen the former president of EA Ms. Howard Boyd.

“We need to look at the safe and permanent use of mud in agriculture to help us clean our waterways,” said a spokesman.

“Independent Water Commission will detect several issues, including regulatory structure to spread mud, and we continue to work closely with the environment agency, water companies and farmers in the region.”

Water UK represents water companies in England and Wales, and a spokesperson said: “Although some biorsors may have contamination, such as microplastic and forever chemicals (PFAs), there are no legal standards for them and in some cases, there is no agreeable evaluation technology.”

“Any standard and technology is a case for government and regulator and need to be based on strong evidence and detailed scientific research.”