When Johns Hopkins University and federal researchers spread sewage sludge compost on East Baltimore yards, they were providing “scientific cover” rather than attempting to reduce lead levels, a former Environmental Protection Agency microbiologist told Maryland officials.
The study is “central” to the scientist?s False Claims Act lawsuit against officials at the EPA and University of Georgia, which was first reported in April in The Examiner. The suit alleges that the school intentionally spread false information to support the federal government?s practice of offering sludge as free fertilizer to farmers.
“Taken as a whole, much of the evidence embodied in our lawsuits suggests that the government?s interest in testing sewage sludge in inner-city neighborhoods has more to do with providing ?scientific? cover than it does with protecting children from lead poisoning,” former EPA microbiologist David Lewis said in a June letter to Carl Snowden, director of civil rights in the attorney general?s office, and other state and local officials.
Lewis suggested researchers used the Baltimore inner-city neighborhoods as a means to dump the sludge in an area where there would be little opposition ? not as a means to help children at risk for lead poisoning.
The letter, obtained by The Examiner, said that if researchers were trying to reduce lead exposure, they should not have tilled the soil before dumping the sludge compost because that spreads lead in the air.
Lewis also said the Kennedy Krieger Institute did not report levels of molybdenum and mercury in the compost, two of nine heavy metals that the federal government regulates in sludge.
The 2005 Baltimore study found that using Class A sewage sludge compost reduced the lead levels in the highly contaminated soils of several black families? East Baltimore yards. The compost is treated to eliminate pathogens and is mixed with wood chips.
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and Krieger performed the federally funded study. Bloomberg Dean Michael Klag and Krieger President Gary Goldstein repeatedly said the study reduced lead levels and involved a compost that is commercially sold.
“What we?ve stated all along is that this is a study that was about reducing dangerous lead in the soil,” said Tim Parsons, spokesman for Johns Hopkins. “What we were using was a commercially available compost that was approved by the EPA and the Maryland Department of the Environment, that was approved for this very purpose.”
Parsons cited four newspaper articles published in 2000 from The Toledo Blade, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Morning Call and The Tennessean in which Lewis is quoted and paraphrased saying that Class A sewage sludge is safe.
The articles were published during the same time the Baltimore study was conducted.
Lewis and his attorney met recently in Baltimore with Snowden and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to discuss possible litigation relating to the study, according to the letter.
Read the full document of Lewis’ letter in a PDF file.
