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"The Salt" article claims that only "a small group of activists has claimed that biosolids are toxic and full of heavy metals, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals." This cuts straight to the heart of the industry and government's justification for ignoring harm from this North American wide practice. When sewage spreading started on Ottawa Canada farmland back in the 1990s, we rural people living near the spreading areas investigated and raised concerns about contamination of the aquifer we draw our well water from. Ottawa's medical officer of health responded "even if all your wells are contaminated by sewage spreading, and you all get sick from it, that wouldn't constitute an epidemic because people with wells are less than 5% of Ottawa's population". We since learned that this is known as "risk management". Whenever the numbers at risk of direct harm of illness from an industrial practice are less than 5% of the municipal population, there is no official requirement or justification to spend money investigating or doing research to protect such a statistically insignificant group of people. This from doctors who took the Hippocratic Oath to "do no harm"!