East Baltimore community leaders who worked with scientists spreading compost on lead-tainted lawns never thought they were being “targeted.”
“Sludge wasn?t really the issue. Our basic problem was lead,” said Lucille Gorham, former Green Committee chairwoman with the Historic East Baltimore Community Action Coalition. “Our interest was in knowing where the lead was in the soil.”
In the study, researchers with Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and the Kennedy Krieger Institute applied Class A compost at nine homes in East Baltimore. The combination of human and industrial waste, and wood chips and sawdust, is decomposed until it has no measurable pathogens and is commercially available as Orgro. Lead researcher Mark Farfel of Hopkins said the compost was shown to neutralize lead in the soil in tests with pigs and other animals.
Composts are very rich in phosphates, which bind to lead and prevent it from being digested, said Michael Klag, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. “In studies with pigs on lead-contaminated soil, if they ate soil treated with [Class A] compost, they didn?t absorb any lead in their bodies.”
Researchers told the neighbors it was harmless and did not test for health effects from the compost because it was already approved for commercial sale.
However, the lack of follow-up medical testing prompted black leaders to call for a full investigation into how the study was conducted.
The NAACP and Black United Fund of Greater Maryland held a news conference Monday night to call for action on their concerns.
Published reports calling the compost “sludge” and comparing it to other health problems of sludge application played off that prejudice, said Gary Goldstein, chief executive officer of Krieger. “There is a mistrust. That initial article with its inaccuracy was like dropping a match into a bucket of gasoline.”
Sewage sludge, also known as Class B biosolids, still retains harmful pathogens and carries strict regulations about where it can be applied, including banning human or animal use of fields for up to a year after application. Class A biosolids, Klag said, have been treated by time, forced aeration and heat until pathogens can no longer be detected.
“I think the public was misled because they got the wrong facts,” Klag said.
Far from targeting low-income black communities, he said, “These were all yards that exceeded the EPA standards for lead in the soil.
“This was a model of how to engage the community. We had letters of support from community leaders,” Klag said. Leaders like Gorham actively participated and helped recruit neighbors, he said.
Gorham said it was unfortunate people today are turning that experiment into a negative story.
“I keep reading about [compost]. I haven?t read anything negative about it,” she said. “We should be teaching our children so they know there?s something good that can come about from it. … If you?re not familiar with the facts, you can think ?danger? all the time.”
Gorham is a gardener and pointed out the community garden at Madison and Montford streets has used Orgro for years. “I have seen the good that can come from it.”
