CSU, Chico News

Patty Martin, the small-town mayor from Quincy, Wash., who helped expose the use of toxic waste as fertilizers, will speak on April 23 at 7 p.m. in Plumas 102, California State University, Chico. Martin is being brought to Chico by the Rawlins Environmental Literacy Project.

Martin will talk about her experiences uncovering the practice by chemical manufacturers of disposing of toxic wastes by selling them to unsuspecting farmers as fertilizer. The tainted fertilizer—containing arsenic and cadmium, lead and dioxins—is believed to be destroying crops, sickening animals and endangering the nation’s food supply.

Martin first heard rumblings about “bad fertilizer” from local farmers and alerted the Seattle Times. Times reporter Duff Wilson worked with Martin to uncover the chemical industry scandal and wrote about it in a series, “Fear in the Fields: How Toxic Waste Becomes Fertilizer.”

Wilson was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for the series, and based a book on the articles, “Fateful Harvest: The True Story of a Small Town, A Global Industry, and a Toxic Secret,” published by Harper Collins in 2001.

Martin grew up in Quincy and graduated from Quincy High School in 1974. She was an outstanding athlete who majored in biology at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., and was named the 14th best woman basketball player in the nation during her junior year. She played a year of semi-professional basketball in Sweden, worked in the Northwest, and eventually returned to Quincy.

She became a homemaker, the mother of four children, and an activist. She started a latchkey after-school program and a recycling program in Quincy that raised more than $7,000 for a community center.

In 1994, Martin filed for the part-time mayor’s job at the last hour and beat the incumbent. Farmers began complaining to her about bad fertilizer. She found evidence to support the concerns and began asking state and federal officials for answers.

She eventually discovered that hazardous waste has been put into fertilizer without people knowing about it for at least 20 years, since Congress put strict controls on dumping.

There is no federal regulation of fertilizers in the United States, and state laws regulating the industry are lax. Since Wilson published his series in the Seattle Times, the Environmental Protection Agency, a national group of state fertilizer regulators and the Washington state governor have formed task forces and sketched out new laws.

In spite of the fact that local farmers originally brought the issue to her attention, Martin received criticism for her efforts. Local business owners and vocal farmers began fearing that the allegations would damage consumer confidence in local products and bring economic ruin to the county.

“Lately farmers and environmentalists have found themselves at odds, but I believe we agree on this. There is no place for toxic waste like lead and chromium in food production,” said Mark Stemen, Environmental Action and Resource Center, Department of Geography and a contributor to the Environmental Literacy Project.

The Rawlins Environmental Literacy Project was established to ensure that university and K-12 students are prepared to deal with a world environment that is being continually diminished by loss of species, disappearance of habitats and degradation of air, water and soil. Professor Roger Lederer is the Endowed Professor of Environmental Literacy in the College of Natural Sciences.

A press conference with Martin will be held the morning of April 23 at 11 a.m., place to be announced.

For more information, contact Mark Stemen at 530-898-5428.

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 5th, 2002 at 8:38 am and is filed under 2002 Spring.