Industry Responds To `Fear In The Fields'

I'D like to be among the first to congratulate The Seattle Times on their series, "Fear in the Fields: How hazardous wastes become fertilizer." There were facts in The Times' story that needed to be known. Environmental scofflaws have hurt the safety record of legitimate members of the fertilizer industry. Unfortunately, The Times failed to make that distinction as clearly as it could have. Legitimate recyclers appear to be condemned by association and innuendo. Sadly, an important series is also marred by some non sequiturs, errors of omission, selective quoting, and even a sampling of incorrect elementary math.

It should trouble any thinking person to see years of valid scientific research summarized in one sentence, followed by a lengthy quote from a non-scientist who questions whether we know enough about the topic. It is cause for pause when a series gives specific quotes to one side of an issue only, and generalizes the statements of the other side. That seems to happen repeatedly in The Times series.

Let me give some specific examples of why - as one scientist told me - "it looks like Times staff members were writing toward a predetermined conclusion."

The series touts Canada's fertilizer regulations but fails to tell you that some of the U.S. companies the story singled out as "toxic waste" recyclers currently meet the Canadian standards and sell products there regularly. They sold their products for decades before the advent of Canadian standards. When the standards were implemented, they easily and quickly met them, and continued helping produce safe, abundant crops. That simple clarification on the part of The Times would have gone a long way to protecting legitimate recyclers, while still raising necessary issues about scofflaws.

The Times was provided material from independent university researchers. Not a bit of that science made it into the article, supposedly because of space limitations. They had space for extensive quotes from non-scientists worried about what they don't know. They provided little or no space for quoting the scientists who've studied the specific issues raised in the series.

We should be concerned about the potential of these metals moving up the food chain. But numerous scientific studies, readily available to The Times, show background levels - naturally occurring levels in untreated soil - of many heavy metals equal to or higher than the levels in soils treated with fertilizers. In the spirit of fully informing the public, those studies should have been part of the series.

The Times was provided with a scientific literature review on heavy metals in the food chain. They didn't cite it. It shows that dietary exposure to heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, and arsenic is declining, not increasing. In other words, despite what The Times' series calls "a growing national phenomenon" of using toxic waste as a fertilizer ingredient, the amount of lead, cadmium, and arsenic you ingest is declining. Fully disclosing that study would help focus attention on real problems.

The story quotes Canada's top fertilizer regulator as saying the U.S. congratulates people for recycling things without understanding what the problems are with the recycled material. It fails to cite remarks she made last year at a U.S. conference: "Although the designation `wastes' has been applied at many points in this discussion, there are a number of other terms that could be used, including `by-products' or `residues.' In fact, for materials that can be re-used for beneficial purposes, `wastes' is a misnomer." In other words, she - along with the EPA, the DOE, and most conservationists and farmers - is a proponent of recycling materials. She makes a distinction between waste and recycled materials.

In citing the Canadian standards for heavy metals in fertilizers, The Times miscalculated the simple math contained in the footnotes. The standards are based on a fertilizer containing 5 percent nitrogen. The footnote clearly states the standards are adjusted proportionally for higher-nitrogen-level fertilizers. (Obviously, it's a real world standard - applying only as much fertilizer as the crop needs to reach maximum growing efficiency.) When you have the full footnote (which The Times didn't include), and do the math, metal levels that appear to exceed the Canadian standard are suddenly within the Canadian standards.

The series also failed to note Canadian regulations allow a fertilizer to exceed the zinc levels cited in the story, because zinc is often added as a micro-nutrient. They left readers to assume that a number of Washington state fertilizers violated the Canadian standard for zinc, when they would be perfectly legal and useful in the growing healthy crops in Canada or the U.S. We asked Canada's top fertilizer regulator, Darlene H. Blair, to verify our calculations. She did.

The Times quotes Ali Kashani of the Washington Department of Agriculture as saying it would be nice to have a regulation on the amount of heavy metals allowed in fertilizers. They don't tell you that Ali Kashani sent Times staff members an analysis of heavy metals found in fertilizers sold in Washington state. The majority of the samples had non-detectable levels of arsenic and lead. Of those that had detectable levels of lead and arsenic, all of them fell below the Canadian standards. Once again, telling readers that would have given them a different impression of legitimate recycling efforts.

The Times series states that the lack of national regulation and labeling requirements means most farmers have no idea exactly what they're putting on their crops, and no way to find out. What they don't tell you is that every retail dealer must - by federal regulation - have on file a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for every chemical and fertilizer they sell. Since crop nutrients are often sold in mixes, the amount of information on a MSDS would be impossible to fit on a small label. But the customer can get all the MSDS sheets for every product purchased. All they have to do is ask.

The Seattle Times series gets some very important things right. There have been scofflaws - outside industries moving in on the legitimate fertilizer industry by offering material at no cost, or even paying farmers to take it. Fertilizer industry members are happy when violators are caught, which - as the story pointed out - they have been. This shows the current regulatory system works.

As an industry, we generally support legislation or regulation that focuses on positive solutions. We are willing to be at the table, working with regulators, legislators and other organizations to improve the current regulatory system. We have a solid track record of compliance and cooperation.

American agribusiness produces the safest, most abundant food supply in the history of the world. Much of America's prosperity is based on that fact. You spend less of every dollar for safe food than most consumers elsewhere in the world. That means more money for recreation, leisure and entertainment. If we want to keep that economic edge, good science and accurate reporting of that science will be essential.

Pete Fretwell represents the Far West Fertilizer & Agrichemical Association, Spokane.