Republican Gordon Smith's Factory: Employees Regularly Amputated Reminiscent of 1910

by: Matt Stoller

Thu Oct 23, 2008 at 16:56

( - promoted by Chris Bowers)

From the mail bag:

I am an historian of workers' compensation. Your story on Oregon's Sen. Smith really caught my attention. That number of amputations for a frozen food factory is what you might expect if we were back in 1910. Really. Leather drive belts for the equipment etc. It is really extraordinary.
Sincerely,
Robert Asher
Professor of History Emeritus
University of Connecticut

It's not just that his employees are regularly amputated. Food expert Jill Richardson at La Vida Locavore filled in some details about what it means for Smith to irrigate his crops with partially treated sewage, ie toxic chemicals mixed with 'poop and pee'.

Matt Stoller :: Republican Gordon Smith's Factory: Employees Regularly Amputated Reminiscent of 1910

The idea of composting human waste and spreading it on farm fields is an ancient one. The Chinese did it rather famously. Instead of treating poop as a burdensome, toxic waste product, it was valued fertilizer. Composting, by the way, kills off any harmful bacteria. If this stuff was composted properly, there wouldn't be E. coli floating around in it.
But the nightsoil the Chinese used didn't have heavy metals like lead and cadmium in it. Because we mix all waste from all sources together, ours does. What happens to human waste now is that they do what they can to clean it up and whatever's left, well... there's no real good solution. It's toxic, and no one [in their right mind] wants it.

Smith is just an abomination.

Tags: OR-Sen, Jeff Merkley, Gordon Smith, (All Tags)

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Republican Gordon Smith's Factory: Employees Regularly Amputated Reminiscent of 1910 | 6 comments

what the hell is this?!?! (4.00 / 1)

honestly, what happened to the last 100 years in the u.s.? or my imagination of what they were, which apparently they weren't. the whole point of being an imperialist hegemon is so that you don't treat people like this in your country. f@#king shortsighted assholes.

by: dr anonymous @ Thu Oct 23, 2008 at 21:42:19 PM UTC

abomination (4.00 / 2)

I can't speak to the safety issues at Smith's plant, which sound truly horrible. I can say, as I mentioned in a previous post, that using biosolids from sewage treatment plants as fertilizer on agricultural crops is not an abomination. It is a common practice that is perfectly legal and heavily regulated. The heavy metals issues are very well studied and are dealt with in federal law through monitoring and use prohibitions. Pathogen control in biosolids is achieved through lime stabilization, also according to federal law. There may be a lot of reasons for calling Smith's food plant operation an abomination, but using biosolids for fertilizer is not in and of itself a problem, at least until violations of federal 40CFR part 503 are proven.

That is not to say it can't be a problem. That's the reason I don't drink sun tea.

by: PaulC37943 @ Thu Oct 23, 2008 at 22:31:36 PM UTC

Matt (4.00 / 1)

Amputated is misspelled in the title of the post.

As horrendous as the news is in this post, my daughter has worked with Southern California COSH (Coalition of Occupational Safety and Health) the past few years. Lots of rough situations to deal with in the category of worker's rights, or lack there of.

by: Kitt @ Thu Oct 23, 2008 at 23:34:38 PM UTC