In one instance, radioactive waste was spread on 9,000 acres of grazing land. A nine-legged frog was subsequently found in an adjacent pond. In other cases, crops have been killed, and the soil has required detoxification. More and more lawsuits are being filed by farmers, but in the mean time, the practice continues. Fertilizer manufacturers and toxic waste producers quoted by the Times said that since the practice was legal, they saw no problem in doing it.
Experts disagree on the risks and say further study is needed.
Regulators in California have been studying the issue for years and still cannot say what constitutes a safe level of lead, cadmium and arsenic in fertilizer. But in recent years, doctors and scientists learned that trace amounts of lead can cause developmental problems in children and high blood pressure in adults. Lead is prohibited in gasoline, paint and food-can solder. So far, no study has documented harm to human or animal health in the United States from the recycling of hazardous materials into chemical fertilizers. In Japan, however, studies showed that subsistence rice farmers had been sickened by ingesting cadmium that had passed from fertilizers through the rice crop.