Obama Never Promised Us a Gross Garden
White House mini-farm cleansed of sludge
By SARA K. SMITH
Updated 1:18 PM PDT, Thu, Aug 13, 2009
As if growing an organic garden full of slithering pests and creeping molds weren't disgusting enough, it turns out the Obama family decided to plant their garden in the middle of a sludge-contaminated wasteland full of lead, antibiotics and even sleeping pill chemicals.
Back in June, Mother Jones magazine reported that the White House lawn was fertilized with sludge -- basically, the solids that emerge from treated sewage -- for at least a decade.
Starting in the late 1980s and continuing for at least a decade, the South Lawn was fertilized by ComPRO, a compost made from a nearby wastewater plant's solid effluent, aka sewage sludge. [...] Spreading sludge at the White House was a way for the EPA to reassure the public that using it as a fertilizer for crops and yards (instead of dumping it in the ocean, as had been common practice) would be safe. "The Clintons are walking around on poo," the EPA's sludge chief quipped in 1998, "but it's very clean poo."
The head groundskeeper disputed this report, saying that sludge was only used once in 1985 -- but who knows? Perhaps he was too addled by lead and sleeping pills to know what he was talking about.
At any rate, the Obamas had their dirt tested before they broke ground on their new garden, and when they discovered all kinds of foul chemical nastinesses, they just added grosser things to the soil.
First it was tested and then amendments were added accordingly: lime, green sand and crab meal as well as organic matter in the form of compost made by the National Park Service.
The lead levels decreased and the soil became as pristine as any in the land, which is to say not very, because soil is by definition dirty.
Now the First Family dines on filthy worm-chewed vegetables, enriched with the nutrient power of "compost," which is hippie slang for "rotting leaves and kitchen scraps," as well as the bodies of dead shellfish and the powdery stuff you sprinkle in an outhouse to keep it from smelling. Yum!
Organic life form Sara K. Smith writes for NBC and Wonkette.
Copyright NBC Local Media
First Published: Aug 13, 2009 11:28 AM PDT
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