Product Description

I see soil in a new light, and I wonder about my own lawn and garden. What have I sprinkled on my backyard? Is somebody using my home, my food, to recycle toxic waste? It seems unbelievable, outlandish -- but what if it's true?

A riveting exposÉ, Fateful Harvest tells the story of Patty Martin -- the mayor of a small Washington town called Quincy -- who discovers American industries are dumping toxic waste into farmers' fields and home gardens by labeling it "fertilizer." She becomes outraged at the failed crops, sick horses, and rare diseases in her town, as well as the threats to her children's health. Yet, when she blows the whistle on a nationwide problem, Patty Martin is nearly run out of town.

Duff Wilson, whose Seattle Times series on this story was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, provides the definitive account of a new and alarming environmental scandal. Fateful Harvest is a gripping study of corruption and courage, of recklessness and reckoning. It is a story that speaks to the greatest fears -- and ultimate hope -- in us all.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #290774 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-01
• Released on: 2002-10-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.com
Arsenic, cadmium, lead, beryllium: industrial byproducts so toxic it is illegal to dump them into the air or water. Yet, through a loophole in "the crazy semantics of waste disposal," these same hazardous wastes are being applied to the food we eat. And until a small-town mayor from a farming community in Washington State became suspicious, nobody knew. Mayor Patty Martin is a whistleblower as extraordinary as Karen Silkwood and Erin Brockovich--smart, persistent, courageous, and overwhelmingly dedicated to her cause even when the town that elected her turned against her. Martin's obsession with hazardous waste in fertilizer began when she met Dennis DeYoung, a local farmer whose land was rendered infertile after the Cenex/Land O'Lakes company paid him to spread the residue from their fertilizer rinse pond on his land. But there was more than fertilizer residue there--it was a witches' brew of hazardous metals, cancer-causing chemicals, and even radioactive materials that hadn't been produced by the company itself. DeYoung and Martin wanted to know how they got there and why.

Duff Wilson, an investigative journalist for the Seattle Times, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his series "Fear in the Fields--How Hazardous Wastes Become Fertilizer," which formed the basis of this book. While the articles prompted a modicum of action in Washington State and elsewhere, complacency allows the practice to continue even now. Expanded into book form, this impassioned exposé about an alarming trend takes on even more power as Wilson and Martin ask questions the EPA has been unwilling to answer: Why should there be a limit on the amount of lead in paint and dioxin in cement but not in the fertilizer spread over farmlands and gardens? And is there a correlation between the widespread use of toxins in fertilizers and the phenomenal rise in childhood illnesses and cancers since the early 1980s? --Lesley Reed

From Publishers Weekly
In this alarming, real-life version of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, Patty Martin, a housewife, mother of four and mayor of the small farming town of Quincy, Wash., began to notice a pattern of failing crops, infertile topsoil and rare diseases in her community in the early 1990s. When she asked tough questions about the pattern, she received evasions and resistance from some local businesses and farmers, which only made her dig deeper. Martin found that a product manufactured with sludge from a waste pond in town, sold as fertilizer and spread on local farms, stunted crops, destroyed quality topsoil and left high concentrations of such heavy metals as cadmium, chromium and beryllium not usually present in fertilizers. As Martin pursued links between fertilizers, hazardous waste and public health risks, she, like Ibsen's protagonist, became increasingly unpopular in the town she was trying to protect. Growing beyond the conflict in Quincy, Wilson's investigation (which led to a 1997 series of articles that were nominated for Pulitzer Prize consideration) revealed that under prevailing state and federal laws, polluting industries throughout the U.S. saved millions of dollars by sending hazardous waste to fertilizer makers who in turn recycled the toxic chemicals into a product sold to farmers and consumers without disclosing what was in it. In the resulting outcry, Washington State became the first to insist that fertilizer companies provide detailed chemical analyses of their products. Wilson's copious reporting and Patty Wilson's example make a convincing case for a national policy on hazardous materials recycling. Agent, Elizabeth Wales. (Sept. 13) Forecast: This lucid presentation of the facts will stir the passions of readers already concerned about environmental issues, but those accustomed to more gut-wrenching accounts of similar transgressions, like A Civil Action and the film Erin Brockovich, won't be drawn in as easily.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Based on a series of articles in the Seattle Times, this is a timely and chilling look at the way corporate polluters evade government toxic-waste laws and how waste from steel mills, power plants, and chemical companies is magically transformed into fertilizer and plant food by the simple act of relabeling. Seattle Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize nominee Wilson describes how toxic waste from a farm chemical store in Quincy, WA, was drained from a waste lagoon and palmed off as fertilizer to a farmer in debt to the store. When crops withered, horses died, and people became sick, the mayor of Quincy led a crusade to expose this repackaging of industrial waste. Wilson documents the collusion of corporations and government officials who allow the land to be despoiled and our food poisoned. This gripping read is highly recommended for all libraries with current events collections. Duncan Stewart, State Historical Society of Iowa Lib., Iowa City
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Important information for any consumer of food...namely YOU
A very profound and honest book about our current regulation (err...rather lack of regulation) in the fertilizer industry. Enjoy your potatoes? They taste even better with some heavy metals and radioactive wastes thrown in. Our governments (all of them, in all countries) are failing us, sweet talked by the industry and the glow of the word "recycling". This book is well written and holds you; even through the information that you might not want to hear. Highly recommended reading.

Whats in your food?
The answer is who knows? In this impressive work of muckracking journalism, the author tells the story of Patty Martin, Dennis DeYoung, and the various other protagonists and antagonists set in Quincy, Washington. Mayor Martin begins to notice in the 1990s that some of the farmers in her town are suffering sudden, catastrophic failurs of crops and livestock deaths. Many of these failures share similar symptoms. She and some others in this small town also notice that individuals within their community are falling sick and dying from rare diseases and cancers. Thru hard work, personal charisma, patience, and a bit of paranoia, the mayor and some friends begin to piece together a picture of how companies sell toxic waste to fertilizer companies, which in turn sell them to farmers. In essence, they hope that the solution to pollution is dilution. And it is all entirely legal according to federal and many state laws. Mayor Martin and her friends; who call themselves the Water Group, start to publicize this knowledge and challenge the practices. In return, they get ostracized by their fellow citizens, their former friends, even their own family members.

In steps Duff Wilson of the Seattle Times. Suddenly this story picks up traction in the national press and government regulators come calling. The ensuing revelations show that this practice is actually well-known within the EPA and government circles, but they in effect obey industry. The amount of money saved by companies, both the fertilizer companies and the original generators of the toxic waste, are too much to turn down for many companies.

Because of the press, some charges are filed and some fines are levied. A happy ending you suppose? No, Mayor Martin loses re-election; her allies in Quincy suffer bankrupties, social isolation, some move away to other states, and others just plain give up the struggle. Cenex is the primary culprit in the case of Quincy, but there is enough blame to go around. Many of the locals don't want to hear any word of this because they fear it will damage their livelihoods as farmers. Some get retribution in return. Several of Martin's critics and enemies and some of the primary defenders of Cenex within the community start falling sick from rare illnesses and die. All in all, this is the most incredible story of how greed has corrupted America that I have ever read. I recommend it to everyone.

Why aren't you outraged?
It wil amaze you the lengths that those in power will go to to cover up and legitimize an outright crime against human health. This story will anger and inspire you. I flew through it in a couple of nights and couldn't believe that Patty Martin, like Erin Brockovich, is not a household name. What courage! I just wonder what it will take for those in power to see the error in their ways-perhaps their own child getting leukemia or idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a disease rampant in Quincy, where the book takes place.