 "Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta")
BALTIMORE - Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil.
Nine low-income families in Baltimore row houses agreed to let researchers till the sewage sludge into their yards and plant new grass. In exchange, they were given food coupons as well as the free lawns as part of a 2005 study funded by the Housing and Urban Development Department.
"They were told that their lawn, before it was treated, was a lead danger to their children," said Rufus Chaney, an Agriculture Department research agronomist who co-wrote the Baltimore study. He acknowledged the families were not told there have been some safety disputes and health complaints over sludge.
The Baltimore study concluded that phosphate and iron in sludge can increase the ability of soil to trap more harmful metals. If a child eats the soil, this trapping can let all the material pass safely through a child's system.
Soil chemist Murray McBride, director of the Cornell Waste Management Institute, said he doesn't doubt that sludge can bind lead in soil. But when eaten, "it's not at all clear that will be preserved in the acidity of the stomach," he said. McBride and others also questioned why residents were not told about other ingredients in sludge.
"If you're not telling them what kinds of chemicals could be in there, how could they even make an informed decision?" McBride asked.
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