Michelle Obama's toxic veggie nightmare: White House organic garden polluted with sludge
Filed under: Healthcare
When First Lady Michelle Obama planted an organic vegetable garden on the White House lawn in March 2009, she hoped to both set an example of healthy eating and to grow tasty edibles for her daughters and husband. But Michelle's organic dream has been dashed by a nasty toxic legacy lurking in the soils of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It turns out that a previous Presidential gardening team had used sewage sludge for fertilizer.
This is a fairly common practice with one huge problem. Sewage sludge tends to be laced with anything that people pour down the drain and often contains heavy metals. Not surprisingly, the National Park Service tested the dirt beneath Michelle's garden and found the plot has highly elevated levels of lead averaging 93 parts per million. That's below the 400 ppm that the Environmental Protection Agency says is a threat to human health. But I'd wager that Sasha, Malia and Barack won't be getting arugula or tomatoes from this garden any time soon.
The White House has sought to downplay the issue, and a number of experts have pointed out that 93 ppm of sludge in soil is somewhat normal for older urban locales. However, the EPA recommends not growing food in soil that has 100 ppm. Several major food producers, including H.J. Heinz and Del Monte, won't accept produce grown in sludge. That's despite decades of U.S. government efforts to encourage farmers to use solid sewage wastes in lieu of traditional fertilizer products.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 28)
7-30-2009 @ 10:16AM
jade said...
aww poor michelle wonder if the Russians are watching what not to do...
Reply
7-31-2009 @ 1:23PM
A. Knight said...
The Russians (at that time the USSR) learned this over 20 years ago, by using sewage sludge, as a major source of fertilizer. It is all the chemicals, etc. that people put down the drain that is the problem. Pure shit sludge would work just fine, even better if composed.
8-02-2009 @ 11:52AM
Jeff said...
what an asshole
7-31-2009 @ 6:23PM
Kelly said...
I must stop using AOL. It's embarrassing to be grouped among such ignorant people as those responding to this article.
7-31-2009 @ 6:32PM
barbyk said...
looks like the obamas did as much research on this as they do other projects - mess up a garden - you have got to be kidding
7-31-2009 @ 8:51PM
Joe said...
Will they ever stop blaming poor George Bush for all thier failures. Mrs Obama doesn't know anything about gardening nor does any liberals so they are going to blame Bush, Reagon and Lincoln (yes Lincoln was a republican but it is not taught in any school or text book)
7-30-2009 @ 11:14AM
Matt said...
This story was rebutted on the Huff the next day:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eddie-gehman-kohan/the-only-thing-toxic-abou_b_224854.html
Reply
7-31-2009 @ 9:55AM
David said...
The Huffington Post...roflol...you're citing the Huffington Post as a credible news source? Why not just use Star Magazine?
7-31-2009 @ 10:57AM
KevinFitzz said...
(David, you are an a**) Michelle, try a raised bed next time and use different soil. It'll work, I'm sure.
As far as HuffPost, it has won WORLD-WIDE accolades for being the best. David must listen to Beck, Mannity, Mann Coulter, Rush, and (soon) Miss (I can see Russia) Sarah! Talk about a CROCK 'o DOggie DooDoo...
7-31-2009 @ 11:54AM
DakotaKen said...
The crux of this recent story was " the sludge ensures that Michelle's garden will never attain organic status. "
I doubt that anyone said that anything grown there isn't safe (93 ppm compared to 400 ppm. The EPA set a level of 100 for growing food).
7-31-2009 @ 12:14PM
vincenzo said...
The Huffington Post?!! Are You kidding me? The other reply from David said you would obtain more credible news from "Star Magazine". I disagree with both of you......The "National Enquirer" would definitely have more substance and credible news than the Huffington Pest! While you're at it, you might as well quote passages from Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto". The Huffington Pest.............really!!
7-31-2009 @ 12:19PM
tamira said...
Naturally it was. The Huffington Post writers would lie about the color of the sky to shed a better light on the Obamas.
7-31-2009 @ 1:01PM
Roxann said...
Thanks Matt. Finally some truth.
7-31-2009 @ 1:48PM
wiley said...
naturaly they want this hush-hush. the clintongs used this sludge on America for 8 yrs.
7-30-2009 @ 1:56PM
Alex Salkever said...
Thanks for the comments. I should have made it clear in the first sentence that this was not breaking news but more of an ongoing controversy which we hadn't weighed in on yet. Regarding the refutation on HuffPo the next day, I actually covered the key gist of that refutation (here's a longer version of the refutation http://obamafoodorama.blogspot.com/2009/06/white-house-kitchen-garden-as-media.html) in the post (that the amount of lead was not totally unusual for big city dirt). The author of the original post, however, responded with a post on Mother Jones (http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2009/06/did-sludge-lace-obamas-veggie-garden-lead) explaining why this was still a real problem. Could the lead have come from "environmental sources" - meaning car exhaust - rather than sludge? Possibly. But even in the refutation posts, the experts were not universal in saying that they would happily grow and serve food to children from soil with this level of lead (one refused to comment). Also in that post, the writer admitted that Washington is not a high lead city and that in higher lead cities background levels of lead are closer to 500 ppm or greater. That's more of a tragedy than a ringing endorsement, particularly in light of significant recent research that even low levels of lead absorbed by children can slice a few points off their IQs and possibly take away a slight be very significant mental edge in an increasingly competitive world. (http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/43795/title/School-age_lead_exposures_most_harmful_to_IQ)
Reply
7-31-2009 @ 4:28PM
Cathy said...
The water also needs to be considered as being another possible source of contamination. Within the last 18 months or so there have been reports of the high levels of lead content in the DC water system. The current ground levels may or may not be the same as the DC water because of filtering systems at the White house, I don't know. I'm not an expert, but I do remember the reports on the high lead levels.
I'm not an Obama supporter, but I'm trying to be objective here on this topic. It's unfortunate that the garden is contaminated, but this is a lesson to all who garden or are considering to put in a garden -- test your soil BEFORE you plant anything edible!
7-31-2009 @ 6:31AM
JB said...
Why don't they also check the new whitehouse playground with the toxic crushed up tires? They contain lead, zinc, phalates...can't be too healthy for sasha & malia either.
Reply
7-31-2009 @ 6:35AM
ssknowflake said...
wonder why the clintons didn't speak up when the obamas put that garden out in the first place.
Reply
7-31-2009 @ 10:58AM
Mavis said...
You're kidding, right? Even if the Clintons knew about the problem, think they'd say anything? Once Hillary and Bill stop laughing, they should start wondering how much longer Hillary will have her job. Make Obama look bad and it's under the bus you go.
7-31-2009 @ 11:04AM
Marie said...
I highly doubt that the Clintons themselves had any knowledge of it. There's staff for that.