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community education effort. A well-respected group representing several environmental <br /> entities in Orange County met to develop a proposal based on what seems needed, <br /> appropriate, and feasible given the economic realities. She said that Health Director Dr. <br /> Rosemary Summers has provided background information for the change from this research <br /> agenda to that of an educational one. The original funds to pay for the proposed research <br /> came from an already tight Health Department budget and those funds are not sufficient to <br /> carry out a plan. The Health Department has been working since 2006 to design and pull <br /> together the people needed to carry out this agenda. She said that this is clearly an arena that <br /> the Health Department should and does take leadership with, and it is a matter of working <br /> together as a community to figure out what to do in the future. <br /> Pam Grogan said that she is a pathologist at UNC and she lives in Bingham <br /> Township. She said that she likes the benefits of organic gardening and she is not <br /> comfortable with the land application of sludge. She said that there is a lot that is unknown <br /> about this practice. She is concerned about the diversion of the funds from the research of <br /> testing to education. She is not sure how much information is available since no one knows <br /> from one day to the next what is in sludge, except that everything that goes down the drain is <br /> in sludge. She said that data are needed about what is in sludge. She would rather use some <br /> of the funds to test what is in the sludge. She said that she is not against having a forum, but <br /> she has some concerns about who is on the list and that most of the people on the list are in <br /> favor of land application of sludge. <br /> Nancy Holt thanked Rosemary Summers for securing and working for them to get the <br /> $10,000 in 2006. She said that she is concerned about the shift from gathering data to one of <br /> education. She asked who the people doing the education would be informing. She <br /> requested that the Board read the request about the study and write a letter of support to <br /> Steve Troxler, Commissioner of Agriculture, to get this done. <br /> Sue Dayton, from the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, said that a small <br /> group of them went to a food safety forum today at the state and she asked one expert, Don <br /> Zinc, about his opinion on sludge. Don Zinc is the Senior Science Advisor for FDA and used to <br /> be the Science Advisor for Campbell's Soup Company and Nestle'. Both companies prohibit <br /> their companies from purchasing any vegetables growing on sludge-applied land. She said <br /> that Don Zinc was not at Campbell's when this went into effect, but he was at Nestle'. She <br /> said that when she asked him about his opinion about sludge, his comment echoed much of <br /> what is on the salmon-colored sheet. She asked the Board of County Commissioners to not <br /> redirect the money to a regional education forum. She said that the USGS is extremely <br /> interested in this issue and it is looking for local governments to partner with. USGS has done <br /> a lot of study on this issue. <br /> Myra Dodson is Chair of Sewage Sludge Action Network. She said that the primary <br /> mission of this group is public education and awareness of the practice of application of sewer <br /> sludge. She said that Orange County has over 20 million gallons of sewage sludge spread on <br /> its farmlands per year. The entire composition of sludge is unknown. The cities of Burlington, <br /> Mebane, and Durham spread their sludge over Orange County, much of which is industrial and <br /> from Research Triangle Park. The composition of this sludge is unknown. She said that <br /> sewage sludge is freely spread on and near the banks of Orange County's creeks. She said <br /> that over 4,000 acres of Orange County has been sludged, is being sludged, or will be sludged <br /> in the future, and this figure goes up by more than 300 acres per year on average. She said <br /> that when OWASA fails to bring sewage sludge to Class A status, it is applied anyway without <br /> notification to the farmer or the neighbors. She said that 24% of Orange County's designated <br /> crop lands are sludged. She asked the County Commissioners to stand behind this research <br /> project until it is completed. <br />