News-Record.com

By Eric Black

Regarding your editorial, "Sludge dumping on farmland could have lingering impact" (July 31):

It should be noted that the city of High Point's municipal sludge (combination of residential and industrial sludge) was applied from 1993 to 1997. All of the city of High Point's 1993-1997 tests on file at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources showed the presence of mercury, lead and arsenic. These substances are ranked numbers one, two and three on the EPA/CERCLA Priority List of Hazardous Substances. It is also a fact that heavy metals do not dissipate; they accumulate and have a propensity to be bound in the soil.

The fact is that more than 1 million gallons of municipal sludge (not biosolids) were applied from 1993 to 1997 on approximately 30 acres out of the original 230-acre tract of land, and 66 percent of the 95 homes proposed will be built on one acre or less — with many of the homes on land where the sludge was deposited. Significant disturbance of the soil occurs in construction (basements, footings, driveways, septic tanks, drain fields, pools, landscaping, etc.), thereby possibly releasing the heavy metals that may be bound in the soil.

Keep in mind that no testing has ever been done on this property in regard to the potential elevated levels or possible "hot spots" of accumulated heavy metals or other toxins.

The residents of the Trinity land (Fuller Mill, Post and Old Mountain Roads) are not averse to growth but do question this "urban sprawl" in what is still a farming community.

The sludge issue is not a "convenient" one as you stated, but an issue that in the absence of testing could have potentially serious consequences on construction workers, homeowners, children and visitors.

Ask yourself the question: Would I build a school, day care center, a playground or, for that matter, a home on land where "municipal sludge" was applied without adequate testing?

The writer lives in Thomasville.