The representative of an environmental advocacy group is questioning the level of copper found in the biosolids produced at the city's Lansdowne sewage plant, saying the number makes it unsafe for application to area farmland.
Maureen Reilly of Sludge Watch, based in Toronto, notes a chemical analysis shows copper at a level of 2,400 parts per million (ppm), which she said is 200 ppm over the allowable limit in B.C. which is already high compared to Ontario and Nova Scotia.
"Natural soil would have 50 part per million or less," she said. "So to have 2,400 is just a little over what your ordinary uncontaminated farm soils is going to contain."
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