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Fateful Harvest: The True Story of a Small Town, a Global Industry, and a Toxic Secret | 
 enlarge | Author: Duff Wilson
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Category: Book
Buy New: $50.00
New (4) Used (10) from $26.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 321396
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0060931833
Dewey Decimal Number: 301
EAN: 9780060931834
ASIN: 0060931833
Publication Date: October 1, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Arsenic, cadmium, lead, beryllium: industrial byproducts so toxic it is illegal to dump them into the air or water. Yet, through a loophole in "the crazy semantics of waste disposal," these same hazardous wastes are being applied to the food we eat. And until a small-town mayor from a farming community in Washington State became suspicious, nobody knew. Mayor Patty Martin is a whistleblower as extraordinary as Karen Silkwood and Erin Brockovich--smart, persistent, courageous, and overwhelmingly dedicated to her cause even when the town that elected her turned against her. Martin's obsession with hazardous waste in fertilizer began when she met Dennis DeYoung, a local farmer whose land was rendered infertile after the Cenex/Land O'Lakes company paid him to spread the residue from their fertilizer rinse pond on his land. But there was more than fertilizer residue there--it was a witches' brew of hazardous metals, cancer-causing chemicals, and even radioactive materials that hadn't been produced by the company itself. DeYoung and Martin wanted to know how they got there and why. Duff Wilson, an investigative journalist for the Seattle Times, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his series "Fear in the Fields--How Hazardous Wastes Become Fertilizer," which formed the basis of this book. While the articles prompted a modicum of action in Washington State and elsewhere, complacency allows the practice to continue even now. Expanded into book form, this impassioned expose about an alarming trend takes on even more power as Wilson and Martin ask questions the EPA has been unwilling to answer: Why should there be a limit on the amount of lead in paint and dioxin in cement but not in the fertilizer spread over farmlands and gardens? And is there a correlation between the widespread use of toxins in fertilizers and the phenomenal rise in childhood illnesses and cancers since the early 1980s? --Lesley Reed
Product Description
I see soil in a new light, and I wonder about my own lawn and garden. What have I sprinkled on my backyard? Is somebody using my home, my food, to recycle toxic waste? It seems unbelievable, outlandish -- but what if it's true? A riveting exposE, Fateful Harvest tells the story of Patty Martin -- the mayor of a small Washington town called Quincy -- who discovers American industries are dumping toxic waste into farmers' fields and home gardens by labeling it "fertilizer." She becomes outraged at the failed crops, sick horses, and rare diseases in her town, as well as the threats to her children's health. Yet, when she blows the whistle on a nationwide problem, Patty Martin is nearly run out of town. Duff Wilson, whose Seattle Times series on this story was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, provides the definitive account of a new and alarming environmental scandal. Fateful Harvest is a gripping study of corruption and courage, of recklessness and reckoning. It is a story that speaks to the greatest fears -- and ultimate hope -- in us all.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 Important information for any consumer of food...namely YOU May 12, 2008
A very profound and honest book about our current regulation (err...rather lack of regulation) in the fertilizer industry. Enjoy your potatoes? They taste even better with some heavy metals and radioactive wastes thrown in. Our governments (all of them, in all countries) are failing us, sweet talked by the industry and the glow of the word "recycling". This book is well written and holds you; even through the information that you might not want to hear. Highly recommended reading.
Whats in your food? July 6, 2006
The answer is who knows? In this impressive work of muckracking journalism, the author tells the story of Patty Martin, Dennis DeYoung, and the various other protagonists and antagonists set in Quincy, Washington. Mayor Martin begins to notice in the 1990s that some of the farmers in her town are suffering sudden, catastrophic failurs of crops and livestock deaths. Many of these failures share similar symptoms. She and some others in this small town also notice that individuals within their community are falling sick and dying from rare diseases and cancers. Thru hard work, personal charisma, patience, and a bit of paranoia, the mayor and some friends begin to piece together a picture of how companies sell toxic waste to fertilizer companies, which in turn sell them to farmers. In essence, they hope that the solution to pollution is dilution. And it is all entirely legal according to federal and many state laws. Mayor Martin and her friends; who call themselves the Water Group, start to publicize this knowledge and challenge the practices. In return, they get ostracized by their fellow citizens, their former friends, even their own family members.
In steps Duff Wilson of the Seattle Times. Suddenly this story picks up traction in the national press and government regulators come calling. The ensuing revelations show that this practice is actually well-known within the EPA and government circles, but they in effect obey industry. The amount of money saved by companies, both the fertilizer companies and the original generators of the toxic waste, are too much to turn down for many companies.
Because of the press, some charges are filed and some fines are levied. A happy ending you suppose? No, Mayor Martin loses re-election; her allies in Quincy suffer bankrupties, social isolation, some move away to other states, and others just plain give up the struggle. Cenex is the primary culprit in the case of Quincy, but there is enough blame to go around. Many of the locals don't want to hear any word of this because they fear it will damage their livelihoods as farmers. Some get retribution in return. Several of Martin's critics and enemies and some of the primary defenders of Cenex within the community start falling sick from rare illnesses and die. All in all, this is the most incredible story of how greed has corrupted America that I have ever read. I recommend it to everyone.
Why aren't you outraged? September 2, 2005
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It wil amaze you the lengths that those in power will go to to cover up and legitimize an outright crime against human health. This story will anger and inspire you. I flew through it in a couple of nights and couldn't believe that Patty Martin, like Erin Brockovich, is not a household name. What courage! I just wonder what it will take for those in power to see the error in their ways-perhaps their own child getting leukemia or idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a disease rampant in Quincy, where the book takes place.
Excellent book and about time May 10, 2003
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
When this book talks about how the effects of heavy metals are not seen right away, I know this to be very true. Look at the autism epidemic and look at the amount of heavy metals that are in these autistic children. They don't just have too much mercury, they also are showing excessive levels of lead, arsenic, antimony, aluminum, etc. So is this how the effects of hazardous waste in fertilizer are showing up?
Nowhere to turn. December 11, 2002
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
"Fateful Harvest" was easy to read but the facts presented left me outraged and saddened. Read the book and learn of the magic trick of turning toxic waste with costly disposal fees into a product to sell, fertilizer. Fertilizer which is laced with heavy metals that will end up in our food in increasing amounts as the accumulation in the soil increases. Learn how the average citizen, small town mayor and farmer have zero ability to impact business practices which are supported by the government despite years of heroic effort and the expose of this book. Despite minimal cosmetic changes, the practice goes on, and is apparently unstoppable, leaving nowhere to turn.
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