Food For Thought On Another Dem Corporate Media Slam

I swear, half the time I just happen to find this stuff, people; this tells us the following…

Various sources within the Buzz are reporting that Michelle Obama'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 Hillary were living it up in the White House, their gardening team used "sewage sludge for fertilizer." The fiends!

This Mother Jones story provides more detail…

Given that the White House vegetable garden isn't close to buildings that would shed lead-based paint, a combination of sludge and old exhaust particles from lead-based gasoline is more likely to blame for its lead problem. Sludge can legally contain up to 300 parts per million of lead, which is well above the 93 parts per million found in the White House garden. The EPA says that soil with more than 56 parts per million of lead might not provide "adequate protection of terrestrial ecosystems," but doesn't suggest worrying about anything below 400 parts per million as a threat to human health. However, some soil scientists advise against feeding children produce grown on soil with more than 100 ppm of lead. That's cutting it pretty close for Obama's daughters. The Clintons' "very clean poo" might have been too good to be true.

UPDATE: The blog Obama Foodorama interviewed lead experts who pointed out that 93 ppm is not an unusual level of lead in urban soils. That level is still well above natural levels and the EPA's own 56 ppm "ecological soil screening level"---hence my reasonable assertion that the garden is "contaminated with lead"--but the contamination could also be the product of old exhaust from lead-based fuel. Of course, it won't be possible to know the background lead level on the South Lawn unless someone sampled it before sludge was applied (a White House spokesman did not return a phone call). Given that lead levels in sludge can legally be way higher than what was found on the Obama garden, I still believe sludge could be a factor in the 93 ppm, but how much of a factor will be hard to say.

And by the way, the story also tells us that the sludge had been used on the White House garden “starting in the late 1980s and continuing for at least a decade” (and I’m sure this will lead to further study, and we’ll just see how that plays out).

Also, it should be noted that at least the Clintons actually tried (and the Obamas are trying) to “grow their own,” as opposed to the individuals who preceded our current president.

As Think Progress notes here, Laura Bush was “adamant” that organics be used at the White House as opposed to “inorganics,” which was a bit hypocritical when you consider the following…

In April 2004, Bush’s USDA issued legally binding guidances allowing the use of antibiotics on organic dairy cows and synthetic pesticides on organic farms.

Another 2004 guidance narrowed the scope of the federal organic certification program to crops and livestock, meaning that national organic standards would “not be developed for fish, nutritional supplements, pet food, fertilizers, cosmetics, and personal-care products.”

Though then-Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman reportedly “rescinded the directives” after activist uproar, the vice chairman of the National Organic Standards Board told the Chicago Reader that the USDA “sticks to their interpretations, only now they are no longer posted.”

In June 2007, the USDA greenlighted a proposal “allowing 38 new non-organic ingredients in products bearing the ‘USDA Organic’ seal, despite more than 10,000 e-mails and letters from concerned consumers and farmers.”

This past September, the USDA “abruptly halted a government program that tests the levels of pesticides in fruits, vegetables and field crops, arguing that the $8 million-a-year program is too expensive.”

Also, on the subject of food, the Obama Administration has issued more stringent food safety rules “to stop salmonella and E.coli contamination in U.S. food processing plants and created a new deputy food commissioner post to coordinate safety,” as noted here.