This week, CMD's new Food Rights Network sent letters to thirteen schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that have "organic" school gardens adopted by Hollywood's Environmental Media Association (EMA). As we reported in May, EMA teamed up with sludge-marketing corporation Kellogg Garden Products, which sells products made from Los Angeles area industrial and human sewage sludge with the label "quality organics" and which used the gardens for photo ops with sludge products.
Gardens in which kids grow vegetables and fruits were contaminated with sewage sludge as a result of EMA's partnership with Kellogg, which donated hundreds of cubic yards of sewage sludge products. EMA, which hosts its annual green carpet awards this Saturday, October 15th, has failed to take any steps to help remediate the children's "organic" gardens that were sludged.
EMA Greenwashes Sewage Sludge as "Organic"
In March, CMD sent a letter (pdf) to EMA founder Norman Lear and president Debbie Levin informing them that they were "unknowingly contaminating school children's gardens with sewage sludge." EMA's chief fundraiser, Levin was warned in the summer of 2010 (pdf) by the gardener who had first approached EMA about sponsoring the school gardens, LAUSD School Garden Program Specialist Mud Baron, that EMA's corporate partner Kellogg might be providing products containing sewage sludge (not labeled as such).
Debbie Levin's Biography on ShadesofGreen.orgLevin responded (pdf) in April that "the EMA School Garden Program has never claimed to be 'organic.'" As CMD responded later that week:
This is a total fabrication. The EMA website is replete with only references to your gardens as organic. Even your funding appeals for corporate and public donations describe EMA's schoolyard gardens as only organic. Finally and most shockingly, the day after your wrote this false statement that you "never claimed" the gardens organic, an EMA celebrity was on E! Online extolling your organic gardens.
These and other references are documented on CMD's SourceWatch article on EMA.
Kellogg Garden Products Spins Itself a "Green" Web
2010 EMA Awards Feature Gift Bags from KelloggAs PRWatch reported in July, not only has EMA president Levin stubbornly continued to support her donor, Kellogg Garden Products, but Kellogg's Chief Sustainability Officer, Kathy Kellogg Johnson, has also capitalized on the greenwashing provided to her family's brand by the EMA celebrities' association with it.
Kellogg has also made a variety of claims in an effort to spin the controversy:
- Claim: Kellogg does not use sewage sludge from Los Angeles. Yes, it does. More specifically, sludge from Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties both go to a joint facility called the Inland Empire Regional Composting Authority (IERCA). Kellogg gets sewage sludge from this facility.
- Claim: Kellogg does not use sludge in 70 percent of its fertilizers. This is sleight of hand. First, we have never claimed that they use sludge in all of their fertilizers. We noted that sewage sludge is in the company's widely distributed soil "amendments," like the bags of "Amend" featured in pictures with EMA celebrities. According to an industry report that has mysteriously disappeared since we began citing it, but was archived as of 2008, "About 70% of Kelloggs total annual sales are of composted biosolids products. This represents about 250,000 cubic yards per year."
- Claim: Kellogg's products are safer than toothpaste. Kellogg cites the low amount of certain metals in their products, even saying "To make this point even plainer, there are more heavy metals in your toothpaste than there are in our products." A small number of metals are one of the ONLY things actually regulated in sewage sludge. Specifically, using out-of-date and industry influenced "standards," the EPA only regulates 10 heavy metals, plus two pathogens (salmonella and fecal coliform) in sewage sludge used on food crops for human consumption. But you can see for yourself the long list of contaminants identified in sewage sludge, including -- ahem -- several heavy metals that are NOT regulated in sewage sludge. Furthermore, we have not only relied on peer-reviewed studies documenting sludge's toxic contaminants. We have also cited a 2010 test of Kellogg's Amend (pdf) that found high levels of cancer-causing dioxins. Sewage sludge has also been shown to contain flame retardants, endocrine disruptors, pharmaceutical residues, phthalates, industrial solvents, resistant pathogens, and perfluorinated compounds, which can bioaccumulate in gardens. Just this week, California added the flame retardant "chlorinated tris" to the "Prop 65" list of cancer-causing chemicals.
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