Tuesday Opinion letters

PFAS lead to sewage concerns

A recent article in the British newspaper, the Guardian, titled, “Landmark US study reveals sewage sludge and wastewater plants tied to Pfas pollution” reports, “The largest increase around a field on which sewage sludge was spread was found in the Dragoon Creek near Spokane, where total Pfas levels jumped from about 0.63 ppt to about 33ppt, an increase of over 5,100%.”

Reported elsewhere is the effort by congressional Republicans to prevent legislation that would ban this toxic practice of applying sewage sludge to cropland. Although the national Sierra Club has long advocated such a ban, proponents of this harmful practice find support from the renegade (on this issue) Washington state Sierra Club’s executive committee.

In what many Sierra Club members agree appears to be personal conflict of interest, one powerful club state chapter leader, whose spouse has made a long career in the sewage industry, has for most of a decade, obstructed chapter advocacy and public education for a ban. Although common practice is to recuse oneself on an issue which might suggest such a conflict, this never happened. To the chapter’s shame, not one local group dared to challenge this leader by crying foul. Most members timidly tolerated it.

Now that the scary class of PFAS “forever chemicals” is added to the long list of other contaminants going down municipal drains, through our nation’s sewers and finally absorbed in our food, consumers’ concern has peaked.

The chapter’s response? To finally purge (abolish) its long active and expert toxics committee.

Morton Alexander

Spokane