Press

As the Twin Minneapolis Home & Garden Show opens this week, a local sustainable agriculture organization is calling on fertilizer makers to disclose all of the ingredients in their products.

As "spring fever" takes hold and farmers and gardeners are preparing their soil for planting, many Minnesotans are unwittingly purchasing fertilizers made from industrial toxic waste.

Statement of Kristin Dawkins, Vice President of Global Programs at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, on the World Summit on Sustainable Development being held in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Statement of Kristin Dawkins, Vice President of Global Programs at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, on the World Summit on Sustainable Development being held in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Ironite is one fertilizer that bills itself as a "natural soil supplement . . . popular choice for home, lawn and garden for 43 years. Nothing greens like Ironite. Will not burn." Ironite is made from a 60 acre pile of mine tailings located at a Superfund-nominate site. Testing by state agencies in Washington and Minnesota in 1998 and 1999 found dangerously high levels of arsenic and lead.

Minnesota's annual Walleye fishing opener this Saturday should be a wake-up call for the urgent need to reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants and other top industrial sources, says the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, the Sierra Club and Clean Water Action Alliance.