HELP FOR SEWAGE VICTIMS
Statement applauding political cooperation rather than invoking
Patriot Act
The sludge war of Kern County, California has united Democrats and Republicans in an effort
to stop the spreading of deadly chemical and biological agents on county farmland. A new
weapon was added to the political arsenal on July 1st, when Kevin McCarthy, the state
Assembly Republican leader and other political leaders filed a local ballot initiative to ban the
use of chemical and biological contaminated sewage sludge as a "safe" fertilizer on farmland.
When Gretchen Wenner, Californian staff writer, interviewed state senator Dean Florez, "He
also compared the initiative filing to the Independence Day celebration, calling the move a
"declaration" of independence from Southern California's sludge generators."
Help For Sewage Victims, a nonprofit corporation, applauds these savvy politicians for finding
a political solution without invoking the "Patriot Act.." In this case, the Southern California
sludge generators have used the courts to prevent county supervisors from banning sludge
without an 800 thousand dollar environmental impact study.
That was/is a strange action for the court to take. The Patriot Act, as you will recall, was
enacted to prevent foreign nationals from spreading chemical and biological agents on United
States' soil. The court action implies that it is perfectly legal for agents of governmental
entities in the United States to spread chemical and biological agents on the farmland and
urban lands of the United States. The legal facts are ignored. By law, Congress has stated
that direct exposure, or indirect exposure to the chemical and pathogenic biological agents
through the air, water or food chain will/may cause death, disease, cancer, physical disorders
and/or mental disorders to any and all organisms, including humans. According to Congress,
the EPA Administrator has the documents on file to prove the point.
Nevertheless, the court action appears to support the sludge generators rights to spread the
chemical and biological contaminated sludge on farmland and urban lands under EPA's
fraudulent sludge regulation 40 CFR 503. If the government was serious about enforcing the
Patriot Act, it would invoke the Act against: 1) the EPA employees who created the fraudulent
regulation and promoted sludge as a "safe" fertilizer based on exclusions in the environmental
laws; 2) the public relation firm hired by EPA and its partners to help gain public acceptance
of the chemical and biological contaminated sludge as a "safe" fertilizer; 3) the permit writers
who knew the chemical and biological contaminated sludge would cause so much human
health and environmental damage to this nation and its economy; and 4) transporter.
That is a strong statement. However, there is one paragraph in the fraudulent sludge
regulation which all have read, 40 CFR 503.9(t). The heart of the paragraph is that EPA
states that direct exposure, or indirect exposure to the chemical and pathogenic biological
agents through the air, water or food chain could cause death, disease, cancer, physical
disorders and/or mental disorders to any and all organisms, including humans. The EPA
Administrator has the documents on file to prove the point.
The sad fact is that in the past people who discover they have been exposed to the
hazardous chemical and biological agents in sewage sludge generally end up dead, or dead
broke in there search for justice.