Roy Blunt Says Manure Isn't Toxic

Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-K Street) has filed legislation declaring that manure is not toxic.

According to Blunt's press release:

Nuclear waste is a toxic substance, manure is not. Heavy metals are a toxic substance, manure is not.

That might be true for the amounts of manure produced on a mom and pop hog or poultry farm, but surely Blunt understands the difference when you are talking about the outputs of the industrial livestock operations.

According to RedOrbit, a science and technology news service:

As of 2002, poultry feeding operations were estimated to produce an
amount of phosphorous equivalent to a population of 10.7 million
people, being dumped into the Illinois River watershed, said Hunter-
Burch. The waste also contains nitrogen, arsenic, zinc, copper,
hormones and antibiotics, which are not naturally occurring substances.

They are in the waste as a direct result of an industry's
addition of phosphorus, arsenic, copper and zinc to poultry feed, said
Hunter-Burch. While CERCLA exempts the normal application of
fertilizer, it does not exempt widespread surface disposal, nor the
resulting release of the hazardous substances.

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that Blunt thinks phosphorus, arsenic, copper and zinc aren't hazardous, after all, he lives with a woman who makes her living telling people that cigarettes aren't bad for you either.

Perhaps Blunt would be willing to be subjected to a scientific experiment to determine if drinking water that is saturated with manure laden with those chemicals is bad for humans or not.