Quasar energy group
{{#badges:ToxicSludge}} quasar energy group is, in its own words, "a full service waste-to-energy company" that "designs, builds, owns and operates anaerobic digestion facilities using U.S. components to produce renewable energy" and whose "process generates EQ biosolids. Resulting biogas becomes reusable energy while remaining liquid and resulting solids can be used for fertilizer and organic soil amendments."[1] Quasar is involved in the Toxic sludge industry.
Contents
Involvement in the Toxic Sludge Industry
Quasar's "process" generates Toxic sludge.[1] "Biosolids" is the Orwellian PR euphemism for toxic sewage sludge.
"EQ" or "exceptional quality"[1] mean "Class A Biosolids," a designation for treated sewage sludge that meets U.S. EPA guidelines for land application with no restrictions. Thus, class A biosolids can be legally used as fertilizer on farms, vegetable gardens, and can be sold to home gardeners as compost or fertilizer. Compared to Class B Biosolids, Class A Biosolids are virtually the same, but with stricter limits on pathogens and "vector attraction" (i.e. class A biosolids must not attract disease-carrying insects or rodents, etc). The EPA claims that Class A biosolids must "contain no detectible levels of pathogens"[2] but the only pathogens actually measured and regulated in the law are fecal coliform and salmonella.[3] Despite the U.S. EPA's assurances of safety,[4], the safety requirements for Class A Biosolids do nothing to regulate or limit the numerous other contaminants routinely found in sewage sludge.
Sludge contaminants include Dioxins and Furans, Flame Retardants, Metals, Organochlorine Pesticides, 1,2-Dibromo-3-Chloropropane (DBCP), Naphthalene, Triclosan, Nonylphenols, Phthalates, Nanosilver, and thousands more substances. "Sewage is the mix of water and whatever wastes from domestic and industrial life are flushed into the sewer. ... We must note that, though the aim of sewage treatment is to produce clean water, it is never to produce 'clean' sludge. Indeed, the 'dirtier' the sludge - the more complete its concentration of the noxious wastes - the more the treatment has done its job. ... very waste produced in our society that can be got rid of down toilets and drains and that can also be got out of the sewage by a given treatment process will be in the sludge. Sludge is thus inevitably a noxious brew of vastly various and incompatible materials unpredictable in themselves and in the toxicity of their amalgamation, incalculably but certainly wildly dangerous to life." [5]
Disposing of Sludge by Spreading it on Agricultural Land
Quasar claims that "resulting solids can be used for fertilizer and organic soil amendments."[1] According to the Center for Media and Democracy's Food Rights Network, food should not be grown in "biosolids." See the Toxic Sludge Portal for more.
According to Sludge News, "[t]he policy of disposing of sludge by spreading it on agricultural land - a policy given the benign term 'land application' - has its inception in the Ocean Dumping ban of 1987. Before 1992, when the law went into effect, the practice had been, after extracting the sludge from the wastewater, to load it on barges and dump it 12, and later 106 miles off shore into the ocean. But many people who cared about life in the ocean knew that, wherever it was dumped, the sludge was causing vast dead moon-scapes on the ocean floor. New EPA regulations for 'land application' were promulgated in 1993. With the aid of heating and pelletizing and some slippery name morphs along the way, EPA claimed sludge could be transmogrified into 'compost' ... . But the land “application” of sewage sludge ... will pollute the whole chain of life for which soil is the base." [6]
Participant in the 2011 BioCycle 11th Annual Conference on "Renewable Energy from Organics Recycling"
Quasar was a participant in the 2011 BioCycle 11th Annual Conference on "Renewable Energy from Organics Recycling." BioCycle Magazine is a publication serving the interests of the sewage sludge industry.[7]
Contact
7624 Riverview Road
Cleveland, OH 44141
Email: pr@quasarenergygroup.com
Web: http://www.quasarenergygroup.com/
Resources
Other SourceWatch Resources
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 quasar energy group, Home, corporate website, accessed November 8, 2011
- ↑ Frequently Asked Questions: Sewage Sludge (Biosolids), U.S. EPA, Accessed April 24, 2011.
- ↑ EPA's Guide to Part 503 Rule, Chapter 2, Land Application of Biosolids, p. 37.
- ↑ http://www.epa.gov/owmitnet/mtb/biosolids/genqa.htm
- ↑ About Sewage Sludge, SludgeNews.com, Accessed June 18, 2010.
- ↑ About Sewage Sludge, SludgeNews.com, accessed June 18, 2010
- ↑ BioCycle, 11th Annual Conference on Renewable Energy from Organics Recycling Program, October 31-November 2, 2011, on file with CMD
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