Sludge in the Garden

[jimva]

Sludge in the Garden
by Mike Krumboltz

New homes are full of questions and possibilities. What color to paint the walls? How to arrange the furniture? What to plant in the garden? The external_link family must have asked a lot of those same questions when they moved into the White House. However, the first lady"s dreams of growing an organic vegetable garden have been dragged down by a previous resident that refuses to leave: sludge.

Various sources within the Buzz are reporting that Michelle external_link"s "organic" garden has been besieged by icky goo in the ground. As a result, the veggies aren"t quite what the first lady had in mind. According to Daily Finance, the National Park Service tested the soil in the vegetable patch and found "highly elevated levels of lead" due to sewage used as fertilizer.

So the question is: Who to blame? While dumping sewage into the ground sounds like a crime worthy of Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons," the actual perpetrators were none other than the Clintons. Yep, back when Bill and nnalert were living it up in the White House, their gardening team used "sewage sludge for fertilizer." The fiends!

Sounds gross, but it"s actually fairly common. However, it does mean that the highly touted "organic garden" will never "attain organic status." The certification process doesn"t allow "the use of sludge as a fertilizer substitute." And there"s another problem: If Malia and Sasha weren"t into eating their veggies before, it"s going to be that much harder to get "em to eat "em now.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Maybe Billy Boy was homesick from his life in Arkansas and he had a secret outhouse in the back yard.

 

[ScottyHOMeY]

I spent my junior and high school years and a couple thereafter in the DC area. Up in our end of town, if you knew enough to go to Blue Plains, the city's sewage treatment plant, to get a few pails of sludge do dig in every year, you were considered to be a pretty savvy gardener.

I do recall that there was great interest every year to see what, if any, variety of volunteer tomatoes came up from the seeds that were not digested by either the bowels of the populace or the treatment process. Most were of a salad size, but the occasional lucky stiff would get a beefsteak.

 

[Anonymous-0]

You could very well be right. Coming from the great 'progressive' state of Arkansas, indoor plumbing was a luxury that even the governor would not have had.

 

[RBnSC]

Years ago we were doing the site work for several new sewer drying beds at an old plant. Now that you mention it I remember the tomato plants growing in the sludge pile. The guys that worked there said they were all salad tomatoes. I also remember the smell.
Ron