When the EPA says "eat shit," they really mean it....

The farmers outside Augusta, Ga., say the hay had a musty chemical odor and was dark and mottled. But they fed it to the cows. Then the cows started to waste away, growing so thin that their ribs could be counted through their skin, the dairy farmers say. The cows died by the hundreds.

"We just couldn't save them," said Andy McElmurray, whose family has been farming here since 1946. "They wouldn't respond to antibodies. They wouldn't respond to IV fluids. They wouldn't respond to anything. They just ended up dying."

Because they ate hay tainted by sewer sludge, say the farmers.

This NY Times story from Thursday details how the EPA has been pushing the sludge, euphemistically called "biosolids," as fertilizer. Some organic farmers are actually said to prefer it.

And we can't blame Bush totally for this: the practice started in 1992, under Clinton's watch, after Congress (rightfully) banned dumping sewage into the oceans.

In May, the EPA fired award-winning scientist, David Lewis, a 32-year veteran with the agency, after he published an article in the journal Nature raising questions about the policy.

And we call ourselves an "advanced civilization?"

I know! There are proven ways to safely transform human waste into fertilizer. But do you trust the EPA or a for-profit corporation to do it right?