Milorganite usage

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Milorganite works best to supplement regular synthetic fertilizers not replace. It works great for plant material you don’t want to grow too large but want the plant to remain healthy. I use it for azaleas that always need to be shaped and ground covers like liriope. It would be beneficial to the yew in addition to a time release granular fertilizer

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One of the most hazardous of the toxic metals found in fertilizers like Milorganite is lead. It’s poisonous in all forms and its health effects are cumulative and potentially severe. Children and their developing brains and nervous systems are especially vulnerable to the metal’s warping punch.

"If you consistently spread Milorganite on your garden plot, you’re going to end up with a lot more lead in the soil," says Dr. Stan Tackett, who specializes in analytical chemistry. He earned his Ph.D. at Ohio State and recently retired from the faculty at Indiana University in Pennsylvania. He’s had a long and keen interest in lead pollution, published academic papers on lead contamination and appeared as a expert witness at trials on the subject.

Milorganite, according to Tackett, contains lead levels nine times greater than what’s found in uncontaminated soil. He’s especially troubled by conflicting policies at the EPA. The agency that once worked so hard to remove lead from gasoline because of its human health impacts, he says, now seems intent on pumping lead back into the soil via sludge farming. When lead eventually combines with water in the soil, Tackett explains, plants tissues will absorb the metal.

Would he advise people not to use Milorganite? Tackett says yes. "The amount of plant (fertilizer) nutrients, "Tackett adds," are very, very low. Why on earth would you want to even think about spreading industrial wastes on your land?"

Crawford, parrying like a pit bull, attacks Tackett’s concerns. " He is pretending, because of his stature as a Ph.D. Emeritus, that he knows what he’s talking about and he’s talking about good science. He’s not talking about good science. If he wrote his views up in a scientific journal and would be peer-reviewed, he’s get ripped to shreds. I promise you that."

Crawford and Rubin both mention that the EPA’s risk analysis for sludge included an extreme scenario where a mythical child actually ate soil containing the stuff with out developing any health effects. "I hate to sound like those morons from the nuclear power industry that used to say plutonium could be safely put on your breakfast cereal," says Crawford. "We’re really saying it tongue in check that Milorganite is safe enough to eat, though we certainly don’t recommend it and it’s not tasty."

"One of the big problems I see with his scheme," responds Tackett, " is that 11 to 12 percent of the nation’s children, according to the Center for Disease Control, already have a blood level of lead at a danger level. They can’t stand even a tiny amount of additional lead into their system." Tackett insists that medical and clinical experts have not challenged his views on lead in sludge. "The people who object the most are those who support the beneficial use of sludge," he asserts.

One sludge contaminant that the EPA’s regulatory rewrite chose not to consider is dioxin. "Dioxin is the most hazardous poison ever studied by the EPA," says Mike Drescher, research associate for the Citizens Clearinghouse on Hazardous Waste. The group grew out of America’s most infamous dioxin disaster, Love Canal, Agent Orange, the deadly herbicide used in Vietnam, was also laced with dioxin and takes the blame for numerous physical ailments suffered by the war’s veterans.

At higher exposure levels, Drescher explains, dioxin causes cancer; at lower levels, the effects include immune system disorders, kidney damage, bizarre skin rashes and chemical sensitivity reactions. Incredibly tiny amounts of dioxin, levels on the order of 13 to 20 parts per trillion, can cause health effects. The human body stores dioxin in fatty tissues and it’s the buildup of the toxin over time that poses problems.

Minute amounts of dioxin, between 1 and 2 parts per trillion, appear on Milorganite’s sampling analyses. Still, Drescher advises against spreading products known to contain dioxin directly on food crops or even on pastures where animals may absorb them.

Crawford indicates that he’s unsure where the dioxin in Milorganite comes from, but Drescher thinks the heating process used for drying the sludge and killing disease-carrying bugs could be a source. Temperatures near 400 F are known to spawn dioxin when they scar industrial pollutants like PVCs. Milorganite’s drying ovens range as high as 800 F.

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