Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Rep. Elijah Cummings accused researchers of toying with lives and public safety and called Thursday for a federal investigation into sewage sludge experiments conducted in poor, black communities in Baltimore.
“It?s extremely alarming,” Cummings told The Examiner. “When you have a situation where the risks are not communicated to the subjects, protocols are questionable and you put people?s lives in danger, I think that?s a poor foundation for any research project.”
The request comes after The Examiner and the Associated Press published separate reports on the potential health risks related to sludge. The Examiner reported Thursday that sludge had been linked to the death of an 11-year-old Pennsylvania boy, according to a report by a former Environmental Protection Agency scientist. In Maryland, there are 440,000 tons of sludge that many fear and some claim caused illnesses.
The lawmakers sent a letter Thursday calling for an investigation to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso R. Jackson, whose department funded the study. Cummings also sent letters to Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., asking their subcommittee on domestic policy to investigate. The subcommittee is a branch of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Scientists from Johns Hopkins University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture spread sludge on the yards of nine low-income families to test if it would reduce the danger from lead in the soil, a result of paint chipping from the homes.
The scientists used Class A sludge ? human waste treated to eliminate pathogens and commonly sold at hardware stores ? said Bryan Stark, spokesman for the Kennedy Krieger Institute, which helped select study participants.
“We wanted to do prevention, rather than just treatment, and since we knew that the source of the lead was the dirt in these yards and paint, we decided to attack the source,” said Gary Goldstein, president of Kennedy “This has been an enormous success.”
Goldstein also said it was composted sludge.
But Cummings is demanding a congressional probe.
“We are strong supporters of federal efforts to abate the damage caused by lead paint. Yet this study has raised serious questions about the safety of the families who participated in the study,” Mikulski and Cummings wrote.
The Maryland and Baltimore City chapters of the NAACP requested a congressional investigation earlier this week, asking if the participating families gave adequate consent, and if they were told of any harmful health effects of the sludge. The NAACP plans to hold a news conference next week.
Another congressional committee plans to hold hearings this summer on the land application of sewage sludge, and part of those hearings will focus on the Baltimore spreading, a Senate source said.
Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., a member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, plans to be an active participant in the hearings, his spokesman said.
