Saginaw County, MI

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Saginaw County, MI

Sewage Sludge Applied to Farmland

Since 1989, the Saginaw Wastewater Treatment Plant (SWTP)has given sewage sludge to farmers to apply to their land as "fertilizer." This practice is legal but not safe, as sewage sludge contains a host of contaminants. (For more information, see the article on sewage sludge.) The sludge from SWTP is applied in Saginaw County and as far east as Huron County, MI. As of 2011, about 40 farmers receive their sludge.

"More than 1,800 trucks per year fill their tanks with about 8,500 gallons of sewage sludge apiece from the Wastewater Treatment Plant at 2406 Veterans Highway in Saginaw for use as fertilizer on farm fields, said Dave Hoffman, the plant maintenance supervisor."

"In spring and fall, the Saginaw plant contracts trucks to haul up to 20 million gallons of biosolids at a cost of about $550,000 annually, 2.7 cents per gallon.

"Saginaw recently signed a $537,100 contract with Houston-based Synagro Technologies Inc. — the company involved in a 2009 Detroit City Council bribery scandal — to haul and apply its biosolids.

"The annual transport and application cost could increase to $563,750 by 2014, according to the three-year agreement."

Other SourceWatch resources

• Food Rights Network
• Sewage sludge
• Biosolids
• You say biosolids, I say sewage sludge

External Articles

• Gus Burns, "Biosolids: It's made from people! They're making fertilizer out of people!," Saginaw News, August 17, 2011.
• Gus Burns, "Nearly 6,000 tons of human waste in Saginaw converted to fertilizer for farms," The Saginaw News, August 11, 2011.
• Brittney Lohmiller, "Biosolid human waste in Saginaw eventually ends up on farms," The Saginaw News, August 11, 2011.

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