EPA & USDA encourages farmers to spread toxic coal ash on crops

Submitted by Eternity on Mon, 12/21/2009 - 17:03.
Rick Callahan @ The Huffington Post - The federal government is encouraging farmers to spread a chalky waste from coal-fired power plants on their fields to loosen and fertilize soil even as it considers regulating coal wastes for the first time.

The material is produced by power plant "scrubbers" that remove acid rain causing sulfur dioxide from plant emissions. A synthetic form of the mineral gypsum, it also contains mercury, arsenic, lead and other heavy metals.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says those toxic metals occur in only tiny amounts that pose no threat to crops, surface water or humans. But some environmentalists say too little is known about how the material affects crops, and ultimately human health, for the government to suggest that farmers use it on their land.  Read more.
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sequester pollutants in humans

Submitted by rnojonson on Mon, 12/28/2009 - 08:18.

When you map it all out with little boxes on a sheet of paper it all makes sense. We tried to put the scrubbing box before the burning process box, but that darned fire box dirties things up again regardless of what is before it. Then the cost of collecting, containing and putting coal residue back in the ground from where it came from is a logistics nightmare. They wanted to keep this train of thought secret so someone grabbed the paper, wadded it up and popped it in their mouth, thus the epiphany, "eat it". If we spread a thin layer of flyash on farms, nobody will notice, besides plants only take in what it needs to grow and our soil is so depleted and mineral starved, the farmers will appreciate having something that will breakup the clumps.

(10 years into the future, on the back of the Cherrios box, written in tiny letters, upside down and backwards) Now fortified with gypsum for fiber, mercury and lead for mental health, arsenic and other life shorteners and heavy metals for immunity to rock bands.

It is discovered that the plumbing infrastructure has collasped due to accumulated trace elements in crap has combined to corrode 100 year old pipes, everywhere.

Minerals found in human remains valued for the production of solar cells. Please donate your organs and your ashes. Sales of hermetically sealed stainless steel caskets skyrocket as concerns for polluting the environment rise. Ground burial is outlawed. From dust we came, to flyash we go.

Mr. EPA, do you have a comment on this? Yeah, it's not a food rope, it's a food chain, it is resilient, no harm is done to plants (coal plants), and humans are the perfect vessel to sequester pollutants.